


Linked.

by totally_legit_banana



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Mistletoe, Mutual Pining, Pining Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Secret Admirer, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totally_legit_banana/pseuds/totally_legit_banana
Summary: Off the prompt, "one day in class you decide to scream something in your head to catch mind readers. As you do, you see your crush flinch."Louis Tomlinson is happy to live an average life, admiring his crush Harry Styles from afar. He's not stupid, he knows Harry's out of his league. So he keeps his distance. This works for a good year and a half until something happens that throws that whole mindset into question. Harry, the creep, has been secretly reading his mind for over a month! Why Louis would continue having a crush on him after finding that out, nobody knows. But when he confronts Harry he sets forward a chain of events that leads to their friendship and eventually... maybe their relationship. Haha jk. Unless?Or the one where Eleanor's the most useless advice-giver there is and Niall's the only one in the whole damn story with half a brain.This is an edited version of the fic "Mindreader" that I wrote and posted last year.*Niall and Louis speak italian and this takes place in an international highschool
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Zayn Malik
Comments: 9
Kudos: 49





	1. The Mindreading Reveal

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a book with other characters and used find and replace to change the names so there's some mistakes like "tom" instead of "ni" and "li" instead of "lou"  
> i apologise ;(

“Okay, have fun,” Louis says into the receiver of his phone. “Enjoy the first day at your new school!”

“I will. Bye!” Shuffling comes from the other end of the call before the phone clicks into place and the dial tone sounds.

Louis Tomlinson sighs as he returns the landline to its dock. His hand falls down to grip onto his schoolbag, which he pulls onto his shoulder before walking down the hallway of his two storey house to the foyer. It’s his first day back at school since his best friend moved away the week before, and needless to say he’s not ready. 

Few changes have ever occurred in Louis' life major enough to impact him greatly: This is one of the first. For the first time in years, he’ll be walking into school without his best friend by his side. The thought makes him feel sick to his stomach.

See, Louis doesn’t talk to many of his classmates. It’s not that he doesn’t like them, he’s just always been more reserved, only opening up to a few people in his life. With the absence of his best friend, he’ll be entirely alone at school. He’d had a handful of friends the year before, but they’d all moved away before the start of the year. That’s the thing about international schools like the one Louis attends; you can’t get too attached to people because you never know when they’ll leave.

“Relax, honey,” his mom calls from the front of the house, noticing his worried expression as he walks over. She pulls a fur-lined boot over her right foot. “I’m sure you’ll make new friends.”

Louis lets his head roll back onto his neck and groans. “Just. Ughh. The people in my grade are so boring. There’s a reason I wasn’t friends with them while Eleanor was here.”

His mom pulls her other boot on and stands up. “You’ll be fine. And besides, won’t they have a new student replace her?”

“Oh, right!” Louis reaches into the basket of hats on the shelf beside the front door and pulls out a maroon beanie. “I hope they’re nice.”

“I’m sure they will be,” his mom reassures, dropping a kiss on his head. “Either way, I’m leaving now. Have a good day at school!”

“Mhm, bye!” He zips up the hood of his sweater and walks to the kitchen to grab a cereal bar. 

*

When Louis walks up the gravel path leading to the front door of his school, there are only a few handfuls of students sitting on the grass outside. Normally he’d think of joining them, but without Eleanor (the sociable one), he doesn’t bother. When he reaches the stairs he runs his hand along the smooth metal railing leading up to the doors, taking two steps at a time to reach the top quicker. With a glance at the giant, rusted clock hanging from the archway of the front door, he sees that he still has ten minutes to get his things from his locker and get to his first class; maths.

Fantastic.

When he enters the building, he stops at the water fountain next to the entrance to fill his bottle up, taking a look around him as he does. The school is practically empty. There are a few students from younger grades milling about, but most of the early arrived students from tenth grade and above seem to have gone straight up to their classes. Louis should probably join them. He needs to stop quickly at his locker first, though. He heads to the staircase directly to his left and runs up.

He puts his keys, which he had subconsciously been holding since he left the house, in his jacket pocket to free up his left hand so he could reach around the back of his bag and slide his water bottle into the protruding pocket. It only takes a few seconds to reach the top of the staircase.

Without looking where he’s going, he hurriedly turns the corner of the second floor. His textbooks are still shut inside his locker from when he had left them there on Friday to avoid doing homework over the weekend. How it hadn’t occurred to him to make sure he had his math book with him is a mystery.

Maybe he was running too fast, or maybe he should have taken his eyes off the ground because before he has the chance to catch a glimpse of the persons face, he’s colliding with another student and falling backwards onto his ass. Oh great, just what he needed to kick off the day.

“Sorry.” He coughs awkwardly and scrambles to his feet. “Wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s alright.”

At the sound of the slow, raspy voice coming from Louis' victim he looks up and - shit. It’s Harry Styles. One of the most popular guys in the grade and, although he would never admit it to anybody but his best friend, someone he’d taken a bit of a liking to over the past years.

A _bit_.

It’s not like he’s in love with Harry or anything. 

With a huff (directed mainly towards himself, although possibly also to Eleanor for leaving him alone and vulnerable to landing himself in these situations), Louis nods politely at Harry and continues on his way down the hallway.

Just when he thinks he’s in the clear, Harry calls out to him from where he stayed standing. “Hey Louis?”

He stills. “Yeah?”

“You dropped your keys.” A set of keys, one of them the key Louis needs to open his locker and get his books out, dangles from the middle finger of Harry’s left hand. They probably fell out of his pocket when he’d fallen.

“Oh.” Louis retraces the few steps he had taken and takes the keys back. “Thank you.” 

Harry smiles, closed mouthed, says, “no problem,” and walks off.

Louis turns on his heel and walks away quickly. He’s glad the conversation was cut short. It’s not that he doesn’t like talking to Harry; he just doesn’t know how. What do you say to a guy you’ve been into for a year? It’s especially hard for Louis, seeing as he’s never had to function without Eleanor until now. Maybe now that she’s gone it might be time for Louis to try broadening his horizons and become friends with Harry.

Maybe.

*

The first thing Louis sees when he walks into first period five minutes later is Harry reclining, or rather, lounging, at his desk chair as he entertains a group of people. A usual Monday morning. The teacher isn’t at the board yet, which gives Louis time to heft the left strap of his backpack over his shoulder, (he refuses to use both straps like a normal person), and make his way to his seat.

When he sits down he immediately makes work of pulling out his notebook and calculator. He isn’t eager for math, no, but he wants to make it seem, to the teacher, like’s paying attention. Which he usually isn’t. Although he hates to admit it (even to Eleanor), he’s absolutely terrible at math and rarely understands anything. His attention span just isn’t long enough to accommodate all the information being fed to him. Instead of taking part in the lesson, he usually finds himself watching for birds outside the window or, more often, staring at Harry.

Louis had liked him for over a year: He still does. Harry is easily the most popular guy in the grade, possibly alongside his best friend, Zayn. He has an air to him that exudes confidence that many, Louis included, find themselves drawn to. He’s the type of person who knows his worth and has never for a second doubted it. Louis likes that about him. Perhaps it’s his own lack of confidence, but he’s always felt more drawn to self-assured people rather than ones like himself. It also doesn’t hurt that Harry is hot. His hair, dark brown and naturally curly, is always styled to perfection or covered by a cute beanie. It’s like bad hair days don’t exist for him. He’s also on the soccer team and, although not the captain (one of the seniors claims that title), is a valuable player and probably the coaches secret favorite.

As great as all these traits are, the fact that Harry is so perfect also means he is far out of Louis' league. Although only one diagonal row away from him, Harry feels unmeasurably far away. While he sits surrounded by a crowd of students hanging onto his every word, Louis doesn’t have anybody to talk to. Naturally he’d love to talk to Harry, but he was a very hard person to become friends with: You had to have connections to get to him. His group consists of his teammates from the soccer team, their girlfriends, and some lucky students who have more classes with him than most.

Louis doesn’t fit into any of these groups. He has never been a particularly sporty person, usually preferring art and academics over any form of physical exercise, and it wasn’t even possible for him to become a soccer players _girl_ friend. His only other option, having many classes with Harry, didn’t work out in his favor either. He had quite a few classes with him, but they never sat remotely close and few speaking opportunities ever arose.

So they weren’t friends. They were on decent terms though, of course. Louis was mostly a fly on the wall at school, never giving anyone a reason to hate him and never causing any trouble for himself. Although he wanted to be friends with Harry, he knew it was more trouble than it was worth and didn’t bother talking to him outside of occasional conversations between classes.

*

For all of Louis' good parts, there’s some things he’s just not capable of doing. For starters, he’s entirely unable to pay attention to any maths class he’s ever in. It just doesn’t work. Right now, instead of following the lesson on trigonometry, he’s staring out of the window, watching the birds trot around on the pavement below. One particularly fat pigeon catches his eyes. Huh. What a chunky fucker. Louis subconsciously names him Gerald.

See? Not your typical guy. Although he gets labelled by many as ‘eccentric’ and ‘weird’ (mainly by his best friend, whatever), he’s a pretty average teenager. He just has what some might call a wild imagination. In reality, he simply likes to question things others might find rather unimportant, as he is doing right now. His thoughts travel a mile a minute and at some point during the lesson, a fleeting thought crossed his mind. _What if someone in this class was secretly a mindreader?_

Louis hears a sharp inhale from off to the left and looks up. His eyes fall upon Harry, who’s fiddling with a pencil at his desk about five feet from Louis. He’s stretched out in way that makes him look effortlessly cool, one leg slightly further out than the other, which is bent. His flannel hangs off his muscular frame, showing a plain white tee underneath. Louis blinks several times, trying to look away. If Eleanor were here right now, she’d definitely be making fun of him. 

Louis shakes himself out of his thoughts and turns away from Harry. It’s a miracle the other hasn’t noticed his constant looks. Reminding himself of what he’d been thinking of before Harry intruded on his focus, he resumes thinking of what he might say to someone if they could read his mind. Of course, he would ask how long they had been able to read his mind for. Thinking harder, he would probably also ask what kinds of things they had heard. 

_Wouldn’t it be weird,_ he thinks, _if someone could secretly read my thoughts?_ Even though he knew the idea was crazy, there was no way that could ever actually happen, he was stuck on the thought. _It’s worth a shot_. He decides, just once, just for shiggles, to try and see if there are any mind-readers in his class. And, more specifically, if there were any that could read _his_ thoughts.

Within a few minutes the teachers droning fades, replaced by the scratching of pencils as the students of 10A began to do their work. Louis had zoned out for so long he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be working on. The others do, apparently. Zayn, Harry’s table partner, raises his hand and calls the teacher over to his desk to ask for assistance. Louis doesn’t bother asking for help, (partially because calling the teacher was too nerve-wracking a task for him), instead focusing on his mind-reader test. 

_Show time,_ he thinks. He grips his pencil tightly in his right hand and opens his textbook to a random page just in case the teacher walks by. 

_Here goes nothing,_ he thinks, _HELLO??_

He looks around. No response. Maybe if he’s more specific? Yeah. Calling out individual people should work better. _Hey,_ he thinks again. He looks over to Harry. _Harry, I know you can hear me._

With a sharp inhale, Harry’s head snaps up and he looks directly at Louis. Which, what? Louis narrows his eyes, looking back at Harry. _Can you hear me?_

Harry glances up at the teacher before looking back at him. His head tilts slightly. Was that… A nod?

_Harry, can you actually hear me?_ Louis is freaking out a little. Can Harry actually read his mind? On the one hand, obviously not. On the other hand, if he can’t then what the heck just happened? This could be bad. If Harry can hear his thoughts, he has to know about the crush Louis has on him, right? That’s not ideal. Louis isn’t out to anybody yet. Well, except for Eleanor. And that was by accident. She told him once, way back in seventh or eight grade, that she had a crush on him and he panicked so hard he blurted ‘I’m gay!’ before he even had the chance to think of a proper response.

_Yes, I can hear you,_ Louis hears in his mind. His head snaps up immediately. What the fuck was that? It felt like a thought, if that makes any sense, but he didn’t remember thinking it. Was it Harry? He looks over at him again. Yes, probably. Harry’s still looking at him, eyebrows furrowed. Did Harry just reply to Louis… In his head? Nothing makes sense anymore.

“Styles, pay attention!” The teachers voice suddenly cuts into the silence of the class. She’s still standing next to Zayn, explaining a problem on the worksheet to him, but she’s staring directly at Harry, who shrinks under her gaze and turns back to his worksheet. Louis snickers quietly. “You too Tomlinson!” She adds. 

That bitch has eyes like a hawk.

*

After the initial mind-reading fiasco, there was radio silence from Harry. Louis tries to contact him multiple times, but he gives up after seeing he definitely wasn’t going to answer. He wasn’t mad, though. The math teacher kept an annoyingly close eye on them after they were caught zoning out, and both of them had to make sure they were filling in answers to problems in the math book. Louis finally found out which page he was supposed to be working on by twisting strategically in his seat, pretending to stretch, and throwing a look at the desk behind him. Page 131, aha.

At the end of the lesson Louis makes his way over to Harry, bent on getting answers from him. Harry doesn’t seem to be on the same page though, and has already left the room by the time Louis has crammed his things into his bag. He pushes through the small group of students gathered at the door and runs out into the hallway, spotting the top of Harrys head immediately over the crowd. Tall bitch.

Call him crazy, but there’s no way Harry would’ve looked at him if he hadn’t heard Louis' thoughts. They’ve never talked much in the past, so Harry really had no reason to randomly be looking directly at him halfway through a maths lesson. Sure, maybe it was up for debate whether Harry actually nodded or not, but Louis knows for a fact that the thought that crossed his mind before was not one of his own.

Dodging elbows, backpacks, and girls ponytails swishing in his direction, Louis rushes through the crowd, trying to reach that little bit of dark hair when he looks up and - there Harry is, at the end of the hallway, staring at him as he pulls his chemistry textbook out of his locker. 

Louis takes a deep breath, steels himself, and walks towards him. How should he even address this? This is the first time Louis' properly talked to his crush. Why does it have to go down like this? He could think of about 40 better ways to start a conversation than ‘hey, stop reading my friggin mind’. And besides, Louis has no real proof that Harry can actually hear him. The looks could just be coincidences, and it’s possible that Louis had only imagined the thought he was sure came from Harry. Shit, what if he’s wrong? What if Harry can’t actually read his mind?

That does seem more likely.

Well, it’s too late now either way. Louis' already standing two feet away from Harry, and they’ve made eye contact about four times since he left the classroom. It would be more awkward if he didn’t say anything.

“So…” How do you even approach a topic like this? There don’t seem to be many conversation starters for a confrontation about suspected mind-reading. “How are you?” Oh god, this is ridiculous. He probably sounds crazy, just walking up and talking to the most popular guy in his grade. Thank god none of Harry’s friends are with him.

Harry smiles. “You want to know whether I can read your mind or not, right?”

Louis' mouth falls open slightly. So the attempt was successful. “Yeah. I take it you can?”

“Yup.” Harry pulls a book out of his locker and throws it into his bag.“I can’t help it. But it’s not a big deal. I’ve only been able to hear your thoughts for like, a month, and you don’t really think of anything gross. It’s chill mostly.”

Mostly? Oh god. Louis gapes at him. “Not a big deal?! For a month I’ve been sharing my thoughts with you and I haven’t known!” Then, blushing down to his throat, he asks, “what exactly have you heard?” 

To reword, here’s what he’s really asking: “Do you know I’ve practically been in love with you for the past year?”

Harry shuts his locker with a loud bang and says, “We’ll talk after school, okay? I have chemistry now.”

“I know,” Louis responds. “We have chemistry together.”

Harry stares at him blankly for a moment before finally saying, “yes. I suppose we do.” 

*

Louis had never in his life tried so hard to concentrate on his lessons like he did today, but so many thoughts rush through his mind as he stares at the teachers. Questions like, ‘Does Harry know about my crush? Is he lying about being able to read my mind?’ and ‘Why can he read my thoughts?’ fade in and out of his head as he tries to make sense of the whole situation.

By the end of the day, Louis is even more distraught than he was at the start. He had to suffer through two periods of chemistry, his first lunch without Eleanor, and a double period of Italian. Harry isn’t even in his Italian class, (he takes French instead), so Louis has nobody to stare at. Except, well, Harry’s best friend Zayn is in his class and he’s quite attractive. But still. 

As soon as the final bell rings, Louis rushes out of the classroom and makes a beeline to Harry’s locker, seeing him already standing next to it. The hallway is mostly empty, a majority of the students still in their classrooms, but there’s already a small group of students gathered around Harry, so Louis hangs back a second and waits for them to leave.

When they finally do he wastes no time in walking over. “Harry,” he calls out. “It’s the end of the day now. Can we talk?”

“Sure,” Harry responds, closing his locker. “Do you want to go to your house, or should we go to mine?”

Oh, so they’re going to hang out? Great, that’s fantastic. He’s so cool with that. He can totally handle hanging out one on one with Harry for the first time. It’s not like he’s been wishing for this to happen for the past year. “I dunno,” he says, pretending to think. “It’s probably easier to go to yours.” 

“Okay, let me just go tell Zayn I won’t be at soccer today.”

“Alright.”

Harry walks away and disappears into the French classroom. As soon as he’s out of eyesight, Louis sighs and falls back against the lockers. What is going on? Nothing makes sense right now. Harry can read his mind, he’s going to Harry’s house, Eleanor isn’t here. So many crazy things have happened in one day and Louis' brain is having a hard time keeping up. What does everything mean? Are Harry and Louis friends now? After discovering what he found out today, Louis can’t imagine he won’t at least start talking to Harry more. But what would that entail? If Louis' friends with Harry, will he become popular? It’s hard to be friends with the most popular guy in the grade and not be popular yourself. It’s weird to think just this morning he was hoping for the new student who’ll replace Eleanor to be nice and now he’s stressing about whether or not he wants to be popular. Times do change.

Another thought Louis hasn’t yet entertained crosses his mind. What if other people know about the mind-reading? What if Harry has told his friends? And if he has, what details did he give? What if Harry just invited him over to make fun of him for having a crush on him? No, he wouldn’t be that mean. But at the same time, it can’t be possible that Harry can hear all of his thoughts and not know Louis is into him. There’s no way. His crush is practically all Louis ever thinks about. That and, like, chicken maybe.

“Ready to go?” Harry says, appearing out of nowhere.

Louis looks over to the French classroom and then up at Harry. “When did you get here?”

“Just a second ago. I called your name but you looked lost in thought.”

“Hm.”

Harry runs a hand through his hair, tousling it. “Ready to go?” He repeats.

“Yeah,” Louis clears his throat, “sounds nate.”

Fuck.

Harry looks at him curiously for a moment before asking, “Who’s Nate?”

Louis sighs. “I was trying to say nice but then I decided to say great.” He just about wants to sink into the floor by now. What great first impression he’s making on his crush. Whatever. If Harry really can hear every thought in his mind, first impressions have already been ruined.

Harry looks at him with an indescribable expression before grinning and saying, “yeah. Sounds nate.”


	2. Hangouts

The walk to Harry’s house is relatively short, which is good seeing as neither of them know what to say and the majority of the trip is done in silence. They pass a bus stop that Harry points out as his usual method of getting home from school, and walk through a small park. In total, the route lasts around ten or fifteen minutes. Happily, Louis notes that Harry’s house is only a short walk from his own. 

The atmosphere surrounding them when they enter the house is a bit awkward, neither ready to start the inevitable conversation they’ll have to have about the mind-reading. Louis drops his bag by the front door, trying his hardest not to think of anything, as he’s afraid Harry will see it. Annoyingly enough, trying not to think of things just confuses his brain and he ends up thinking of dumber things than he usually would. Hopefully Harry isn’t _always_ able to read his mind.

As he’s trying not to think of stupid things, Gerald, the fat bird from maths, slips into his head. One thing leads to another and before he knows it, Gerald is wearing a swimsuit. He tries desperately to stop thinking, but suddenly Gerald is dancing the Macarena and wearing a straw hat. Harry lets out a soft chuckle. Louis groans. “You can see that?”

“Yeah.” He looks over. “It’s alright though, I know you’re trying not to think of things. Heard you think about not thinking.”

Louis frowns. “Why can’t I hear your thoughts then? If you can hear all of mine.”

“Dunno,” Harry shrugs. He drops his bag next to the front door and walks further into the house, gesturing for Louis to follow him. “Maybe you’re just not listening.” He turns the corner of a staircase and walks up.

Louis stares at his retreating back. The fuck is that supposed to mean.

When they reach the top of the staircase, Harry excuses himself to go to the bathroom and leaves Louis alone in his room. Okay. He takes a seat at the desk which is pushed up to the wall and looks around. The room is relatively clean, save an overflowing laundry basket in the far corner next to the bed. Which, Harry has a corner bed. Cute. 

There’s a coat hanger next to the door that holds a couple sweaters and Harry’s varsity soccer jacket. Organisation, Louis notes, is not Harry’s strong suit. On the outside the room looks clean, but everything seems to be haphazardly shoved into various baskets and drawers with no rhyme or reason. There’s also a pile of laundry taking up nearly a third of the bed. How does Harry sleep? Uncomfortably, definitely. To be fair, his bed is rather large. It could fit at least two people. _It could definitely fit me_ , Louis notes _._

He quickly shakes the thought away. Harry can read his mind. Right. He’ll have to watch what he thinks from now on. God, what a strange concept. Watching what he thinks. Louis still can’t believe all of the things that have happened since this morning. Less than eight hours ago he ran into Harry and had one of his first proper conversations with him. To think, a few hours later, he would discover Harry has secretly been reading his mind for a month!

Speaking of, why didn’t Harry bring up the mind-reading? And did he know it was Louis' thoughts he was hearing, or did he spend the entire month leading up to today wondering what the hell was going on? He’ll have to ask. It’s insane, the fact that Louis has been into Harry for over a year and now suddenly he’s at his house, about to have a conversation with him about how they can read each others minds. Times really do change.

On topic of time, where is Harry? Louis narrows his eyes. Is he okay? He’s been gone for a while. He frowns and swivels the chair back around towards the desk. _This is definitely one of the messier parts of the room_. Papers are stacked high and there’s at least three cans of energy drink atop the piles. The middle of the table is a little cleaner, thank god. There’s only one small notebook lying there. Louis squints at it.

The corner of a small, pink piece of paper sticks out. Something is drawn on it. Louis wants to ignore it, he really does, but curiosity gets the better of him and he finds himself tugging on the note, pulling it out. It’s small, about the size of a post-it note, and it’s bordered by a series of doodled hearts. Right in the middle, hand drawn with a pen, are the initials H.T.

Huh.

He briefly wonders what the initials could mean, but soon realises what they must be. Harry has a crush. The hearts practically confirm it. Louis would never have pinned Harry to be the type to do such cheesy things as write a crushes initials on paper, even adding hearts. To be fair, he wouldn’t have thought him the type to be able to read someone’s mind either. He vaguely wonders who Harry is crushing on, but pushes the thought to the back of his mind as he hears footsteps coming from the hallway. 

“Hey,” Harry says, walking into the room with a bag of chips in his right hand. “I brought food.”

Louis inhales sharply and hastily shoves the note back into the notebook before turning around to face the door.

Yes. Utterly inconspicuous. Harry will never know you were going through his things.

Harry narrows his eyes. “What happened?” He asks, suspicious, noticing how red Louis' face is.

Oh well. There’s no reason to hide anything, Harry can read his thoughts anyways. “I saw your note,” he admits. “Who’s H.T?”

Harry’s reaction is immediate. His eyes dart towards the notebook on the desk before coming back up to look at Louis, and his right hand, which had previously been resting casually against his thigh, begins fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “Um. Nobody,” he stammers, “just someone I’ve kind of got my eye on at the moment.”

Louis blushes. “You can tell me who,” he says quietly. And, what? Why did he say that? It’s not like they’re friends. If Harry really wanted to tell someone, he would tell Zayn. Or Avery. Or literally anybody but Louis.

“Sorry,” Harry says, shaking his head and looking away. “I'd rather not. It's just- it's weird.”

“Alrighty,” Louis drawls, knowing he overstepped. “Can we talk about the mind reading thing now? How long have you been able to hear my thoughts for? What have you heard?”

Harry is silent for a moment. He sets the chips bag down on the floor and takes a seat on the corner of his bed. His eyes, Louis notes, warily watch his notebook, as if afraid Louis will open it up and read what’s inside. “The thing with hearing your thoughts started like a month ago. I don’t know what started it and I don't know what day it started.”

Louis nods slowly, taking it in. “Okay… And uh, wha- what have you heard, exactly?” He tries desperately to look nonchalant. To clarify, these are the questions Louis really wants to ask: “Do you know how often I think about you? Do you know I’ve been into you for a year? Do you know I’m gay? Have you told anyone?”

Harry shrugs. “Just small things. Like what you think of a teacher, or what you're going to eat for dinner, things like that.”

“And?”

“And I know you like boys.” 

Fuck.

“Which I’m fine with, by the way,” Harry adds quickly, seeing how the color immediately drains out of Louis' face. “I just want to who you’re into!”

“How… How do you know I’m into someone?”

“I can’t explain it, it’s-” Harry shrugs. “Sometimes, instead of hearing you think, I just hear this low buzzing. It took me a while to figure out what it meant, but after the first week I had a pretty good guess. You always look lost in thought whenever the buzzing happens, and there’s only so many things you could be thinking about in those situations.”

Oh, so. Harry watches him. Cool.

“Okay, yeah. I do like someone. But how did you know I’m… into guys?”

“So you are?”

Hesitantly, Louis nods. He’s already outed himself anyways. “But Harry,” he presses, leaning forward in his seat. “You can’t tell anyone. You can’t.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Harry leans down and pulls the chip bag onto his lap. Shoving a handful into his mouth, he says, “so who is it? Is it one of the soccer players? I could totally hook you up if it is. There are some players on that team that are _definitely_ not straight. Chip?” He holds out the bowl.

Louis swallows. “I, uhh, I’m good. I don’t like salt and vinegar.”

“Strange.”

“So you really don’t care? That I’m into guys?” He doesn’t even know why he’s so pressed about this. Okay, no, he does. Harry is only the second person he’s ever come out to, he’s not even out to his mom, so he needs this to go well.

“Of course I don’t care,” Harry mumbles, still chewing. “It’s not like it affects me.”

Oh, well. Ahh.

“Thank you,” Louis breathes. Weird that he’s thanking him. “You really can’t tell anyone, though. You’re kind of only the second person who knows.”

“I won’t. Who else knows?” He asks. Then he realises. “Eleanor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Where was she today? I usually sit behind her in French.”

“She moved back to England on Saturday.”

“Oh shit, really?” Harry looks surprised as he shoves another handful of chips in his mouth. “Shame, she was so funny.”

“Yeah.”

“So, well, anyways, we should talk about the mind-reading.”

“Right, yeah.” Weird how he’d already forgotten about that. “So like, how did you know it was my thoughts you were hearing?”

“I didn’t initially. I was really confused for the first few days, thought I was imagining things. I think after a while, after I realised I was hearing someone else’s thoughts, I gradually narrowed down who it could be. I wasn’t completely sure until today, though.”

“That makes sense.”

“How did you know I could read your thoughts, though? I mean, if you can’t hear mine.”

Oh, great. Time for Louis to embarrass himself. “Honestly I didn’t. I just had the random idea to check for mind-readers in our class-”

“As one does?”

“Shh, it made sense at the time.”

Harry holds his hands up defensively. “Never said it didn’t. It’s just a strange thing to do.”

“Yeah, I’ll accept that.”

Harry reaches into the chip bag again, only to find it empty. He dejectedly throws it to the floor. “So you literally just called out to me by chance? You didn’t actually know I could hear you?”

Louis nods. “No idea. Imagine my shock when you actually responded!”

“Yeah. Weird.” Harry leans back on his hands and lets his head roll back on his shoulder, exposing his collarbones. Which, okay. “So if you didn’t know, that means you really can’t hear my thoughts?”

“Not until today, no.” He frowns. “It’s so weird that I can’t hear you back.”

“Yeah, I dunno. Maybe you can only hear me if I want you to? You definitely heard me before in class.”

“Exactly.” Another question crosses his mind. “Is it ever possible for you tune me out?”

“Well, no. I guess sometimes, if I zone out hard enough, I don’t hear anything. When you think about who you’re into I hear the buzzing, obviously, but otherwise nope.”

“You really don’t know who I like?” Louis asks. “Not even a guess?”

“Again, I can’t hear you think about him. So no.” He shakes his head. “I think he’s in our math class. I constantly hear that buzzing from you in maths, so I'll assume you're thinking about him. What's he like? Can you tell me anything?”

Louis thinks for a moment. Harry wants to know who he’s into. Louis wants to know who Harry’s into. He can use this to his advantage. Without exposing himself, obviously. “Tell you what,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I’ll say some things about who I like, if you do the same.”

Harry nods slowly. “Okay… I can roll with that… You start though.” He pushes himself up and moves to the top of the bed, leaning back against the headboard. With his foot, he pushes the pile of laundry to the side and looks up expectantly.

Louis swallows thickly before starting. “Well, you’re right that he’s in our math class. He, uhh, he’s really hot? He’s also taller than me-”

“-nearly everyone is-”

“-and he is as straight as an arrow.” Louis chooses to ignore the height remark, having grown used to comments like that by now. Yeah, he’s short. Whatever. “Tell me about your crush now. What's she like?”

Harry props himself in on his elbows, facing Louis once more as he starts to talk. “Well, cute for starters. Which I just realised is vague as fuck but yes, cute. I've never really paid attention to how many classes we share but we do talk a little bit in between them sometimes. Uhh, they're bilingual. That’s it, I guess.”

Louis sits on the hard, uncomfortable desk chair and thinks for a moment, but not a single name comes up to match Harry's description. Cute he can understand, yes. There are many people who he supposes would constitute as ‘cute’ in Harry’s books. But bilingual? Seeing as they go to an international school, that gets him nowhere.

Suddenly Harry is standing up, pacing around the room.

“What’s wrong?” Louis questions, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“It’s nothing,” Harry retorts, running his hands through his hair. “It’s just- have you been able to hear anything from my mind? Anything at all?”

Louis doesn’t have to think too hard. “No. I mean, I heard the things you thought in school earlier today. But nothing else. Otherwise I would’ve known about the situation too!!”

Harry sighs. “Right. I just- It kind of stresses me out, the thought that you might be able to know what I’m thinking about. Maybe I’m just being stupid.”

“No, no,” Louis reassures, “you’re not being stupid at all. Trust me, I’m stressed about you being able to read _my_ mind. I totally get it.”

“Yeah, right, sorry.” Harry presses his lips together tightly, looking sheepish. “I forgot. This must be a lot harder for you than it is for me.”

“It’s okay, it’s not like any of this is your fault.”

Harry nods, looking at Louis in a way he’s never looked at him before. Not that he looks at him often, but. It’s very scrutinising, the way he’s looking at him. Louis subconsciously clears his mind in case Harry is trying to read it. 

The moment passes. Harry seems to shake himself out of his thoughts, almost as if he’s found what he’s looking for in Louis' eyes. He walks over. “When do you need to leave?”

“What?” Not what Louis expected him to ask, but oh well. He checks his watch. “Soon-ish. I should be home in time for dinner.”

“No offense, but can you leave now? It’s just, my mom should be home any minute and if she sees I have a friend over she’s going to try to get you to stay for dinner and it’s just a hassle.”

“Don’t worry, I get it,” Louis says. Which, for the most part, he does. But it would be a lie to say he isn’t at least a little disappointed in how eager Harry seems to kick him out of his house. 

They walk down to the front door in silence. It’s a bit awkward, the atmosphere surrounding them. Neither know what to say. Sure, they have a mind-reading connection, but it’s not like they were friends before they found out. What do you say to an acquaintance that can read your mind? Not much, apparently. Louis grabs his bag from beside the front door and turns the handle.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” Harry says, showing up behind him. Oh right, he’s here.

“Yeah, bye!” 

Smooth.

Louis walks out and waves behind him before he hears the front door shut. Okay. As he walks away from the house, his head is already reeling. He really just did that. He just hung out with Harry Styles, the most popular guy in his grade (and not to mention his over-a-year-long crush), for nearly an hour. At _his_ house. And on top of that, he can read his mind! Which, yeah, okay. That’s a thing that happens.

*

When he gets back home his mom isn’t there yet, so he eats cereal for dinner (sad, soggy cereal) and catches up on some of his English homework at his desk. Writing a short story, okay. He thinks for a moment before a perfect idea comes to him. 

*

_Hey, Louis, can you hear me?_ A voice suddenly reverberates through his mind as he’s brushing his teeth later at night. Logically thinking, it’s probably Harry. He eyes the clock on the wall suspiciously. It’s eleven at night, why is Harry talking to him?

He pauses his brushing. _Yes, why?_

_Wanna talk?_

His heart stutters. _About what?_

_I dunno. Everyone’s asleep and I’m bored._ _Entertain me._ Louis can imagine Harry in his head, dramatically sighing and throwing himself onto his (laundry-covered) bed to stare tragically up at the ceiling.

_Sure, I guess._ Quick, think of something to say. Something interesting that doesn’t make him sound like an absolute freak, preferably. _What did you write for the English homework?_ Yes, perfect.

_I just wrote about a guy sitting in a forest and watching a family of deer go by._

Oh, cute. _I wrote about a guy who finds out one day that he can read people’s minds._

_Speaking from personal experience?_

_Shut up,_ Louis jokes. Then he stills. Shit. Why would he say that? He’s coming on too strong. He and Harry aren’t really friends yet, he needs to stop talking to him like he would to Eleanor.

Luckily, Harry doesn’t seem to think anything weird of what he’d said and asks, _how did you incorporate the forest?_

Alright, now he’s confused. He spits out his toothpaste and turns on the faucet. _What do you mean, the forest?_

_Well, the story had to be set in a forest, didn’t it?_

Shit. _Oh, I didn’t know that._ Cool, that’s fine. He only has to rewrite 90% of the story. Totally manageable in a single night.

_You’re probably fine,_ Harry reassures hurriedly. _Zayn wrote a thousand words about an octopus before I told him he had to add a forest. And Shawn hasn’t even started his yet._

_But it’s due tomorrow?_

_Well, Louis, not everybody’s got their lives together like you._

Louis groans and rinses his mouth. Then, after setting his toothbrush next to the sink and turning the faucet off a little aggressively, he leaves the bathroom and walks over to his desk. Time to restart his assignment. At eleven o’clock at night. Yes, this is an ideal situation to be in.

_Want some help?_ Harry asks. He must have guessed that Louis' going to restart.

_No thanks,_ he replies. As awesome as it’d be to talk to Harry some more, he’s distracting. It’s probably smarter to just finish the assignment. 

_Okay, well, goodnight._

_‘Night._


	3. Skipping Class

The next day, English assignment in hand, Louis enters the school building exactly thirty seconds before class starts. Cool. He only has to sprint across the entire building to make it to the lesson on time. That’s manageable. 

He’s still tired from the night before. It was one in the morning by the time Louis finished his short story, and he was already emotionally drained from everything that happened with Harry during the day. Which, speaking of, today is his first day at school with Harry after the mind reading was uncovered. He needs to be alert. Which, considering the noticeable bags under his eyes, might be difficult.

He enters the classroom only 2 minutes late and hurries to his seat. Louis and Harry don’t have class together until the end of the day, so he doesn’t need to worry about what to say to him. Yet, at least.

*

The day passes as usual. Louis sits alone at lunch for the second time in a row, which doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. It’s nice to have some time to himself. And besides, the only person Louis could possibly talk to is Harry, who’s sitting at the ‘popular table’ which, (not to be dramatic), he would rather die than join. 

When he’s on his way to his last period (philosophy, a random class the school board decided to add to fill in the timetable), Harry intercepts him by grabbing onto his shoulder and leading him away from the classroom.

“Um, what are you doing?” Louis stumbles as he tries to turn around, but Harry’s grip on his shirt makes it hard. 

“Skipping last period,” he responds. “And you’re coming with me.”

“What?” Louis ducks away from Harry’s hand and stops walking. “I’m not skipping. I’m about as rebellious as a cheese stick.”

Harry laughs. “You’re funny.”

Oh, sweet.

“Come on,” he urges. “Just skip once, I promise it won’t be so bad.”

“I dunno.” Of course, Louis wants nothing more than to hang out with Harry, but. He really isn’t the rebellious type. What if the teacher reports them? What if the school tells his mom? What if-

“Hey, you okay?” Harry waves a hand in front of his face. “You’re zoned out.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Louis thinks for a second. Should he stay and go to philosophy, or should he skip a period and hang out with Harry? The answer seems obvious. “I dunno if skipping is the best idea.”

“Oh, come on.” Harry makes a pouty face and pulls on his arm. “You suck. I just read your mind and it says that you suck.”

“Why would I think that?”

“I dunno, it’s your mind.” He shrugs and lets go of Louis. “You don’t have to skip if you don’t want, but come on! We’ll get food at the pizzeria.”

“Okay, fine.” Why did he say that, why did he say that? Harry is messing with him. “But you’re paying.”

They leave the school without being seen and make their way to the pizzeria. It’s a short walk, thankfully, so Louis doesn’t have enough time to embarrass himself too bad while they’re alone. _Too_ bad. He comes close when he tries to take off his sweater, though. 

Who even knew it was possible to be bad at taking off a sweater? Cause Louis is, apparently. His plan: Pull it off over his head in one swift movement. What really happened? He got stuck about halfway through and turned into an absolute noodle, throwing his arms out all over the place.

Laughing as he speaks, Harry asks, “what are you doing?”

“Trying to take my hoodie off,” Louis explains, his voice muffled by the fabric currently covering his face. “It looks weird.”

“Nah, keep it on. It’s cute.”

Ahh, so. He should have kept it on. Neat. He’ll just… pull it back over his head.

“Do you need help?” Harry asks tentatively.

He grimaces. “Yeah, could you…?” 

Harry laughs softly. “Yeah, I got you.” He tugs sharply on the bottom of Louis' hoodie and it falls back into place.

Louis coughs. “Right, well, we’re never talking about that again.”

Harry grins. “We’re nearly there. What do you want? They have hot dogs in case you don’t like pizza.”

“It’s fine,” he says, smiling. “I like penis!”

Shit.

“Pizza…. I- I meant pizza,” he stutters. This is a new low point in his life.

Harry snorts. “You really have a way with words.”

He groans. Embarrassing himself in front of his crush really is a talent of his.

“What do you _really_ want?” Harry asks again, pushing open the door to the diner and walking in. “I’m afraid penis isn’t on the menu.”

“I will have one slice of pepperoni _pizza_ ,” Louis articulates carefully, trying not to make the same mistake again. He walks in after Harry and looks around. The diner is small, pretty cozy, with classic red booths lining the walls and a handful of tables scattered throughout the room. They weave in between the tables to get to the front of the diner.

Harry, trying to hide the fact that he’s still quietly laughing at Louis, walks up to the counter and orders himself a lemonade and a hotdog. He chooses not to order pizza because, “he doesn’t like penis”.

Well, Louis already knew that.

*

They sit close to the counter to eat their meal, finding an unused booth next to a window.

It’s a bit awkward at first. Louis doesn’t know the proper ratio between eating his food and talking, so the conversation is filled with uncomfortably long pauses as they both chew. When he’s with Eleanor things are easy. They’ve been friends for so long its not weird for them to sit in complete silence for twenty minutes, just eating. With Harry, on the other hand, this is only the second time they’ve hung out and it’s not an option to just stare at each other in silence. 

Alright, Louis. Say something interesting. Get to know Harry. “Do you have any siblings?” He blurts out randomly.

Harry’s head snaps up to look at him and he quickly swallows his bite of food before saying, “yeah, I have an older sister. Her name is Gemma. She’s pretty cool.” 

“Ah.” Louis nods. Alright, now what? “I don’t have any siblings, it’s just me and my mom.” Shit, that was a boring thing to say. “My dad lives in Italy but my parents got divorced when I was really little so it doesn’t make a difference.”

Harry makes a face that, to Louis, looks like he’s thinking _this boy is boring me but I don’t want to be mean and tell him that_. “Are both your parents Italian?”

Oh, cool. Harry knows he’s Italian. To be fair, literally everybody knows that. But still. “Yeah. My mom moved here with me after my parents got divorced because my grandparents live here.”

“Oh, that’s cool. What do your parents do for work?”

“Uh, I don’t really know actually.” Yes, Louis. Prove your intelligence by not knowing what work your parents do. “I know my mom works in finance but to be honest, I have no idea what she does. My dad works in a restaurant.”

“Really? So do my parents!” Harry puts down his hot dog and wipes his greasy fingers on a napkin. “They run a restaurant in the city.”

“Shit, really? That’s so cool! What type of restaurant?”

“Upscale-ish Italian.”

Louis lights up. “Oh my gosh, are you telling me you’re Italian?”

“Eh.” Harry tilts his head to the side as if trying to remember his own nationality. “A part, yeah. My great-grandmother started the restaurant with my great grandfather after they immigrated from Italy. All their kids married non-Italians though, so I’m only, like, an eighth Italian.”

“Oh, wow. We love family history.” Louis grins. He barely even knows where his dad lives, let alone any of his family’s history. Maybe that’s just cause he’s dumb, though. “What’s the restaurant called?”

“San Sorrentino. Sorrentino was my great-grandmothers maiden name.”

“That’s so cool. I can’t believe you randomly own a restaurant.” He finishes off his pizza slice and wipes his hands on a napkin.

Harry takes notice of this and says, “you’re already finished? You can eat my hotdog if you want!”

Oh, suggestive. Louis shakes his head. “I’m full. I practically inhaled two plates of chicken nuggets at lunch earlier today.”

Harry shrugs. “I mean, if you don’t mind watching me eat my food…” He finishes off the last two bites of his hot dog and wipes his mouth off. “Well, shall we go?”

Louis nods and stands up, pulling on his jacket as Harry gathers their plates and brings them up to the counter. When he returns, they leave the diner in single file. A crowd of 8 th grade students from their school are standing outside the doors, so school has probably let out already. They allow the group to walk into the diner before they leave.

Harry checks his watch. “Shit. I have soccer in 10 minutes. I need to get back to the school.” He looks at Louis awkwardly for a moment. “Well, bye I guess. It was nice skipping philosophy with you.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Louis smiles and zips up his jacket before turning away. 

First arbitrary hangout with Harry: A success. 

*

The next day Louis gets to school early. Eleanor had texted him right before he went to sleep the night before to tell him that the student replacing her was due to arrive today, and they were taking all her old classes. This meant that they would be in his next class, history. He only needs to get through a double period of Italian before then. Cool. 

He hasn’t seen Harry yet. Obviously, since they’re in different language classes, they don’t usually see each other on Wednesday mornings, but still. Can’t blame Louis for being hopeful he might get to talk to his crush before lessons start. He enters the Italian classroom with a sigh and sits down at the first empty desk he sees. The room is small, unlike the French classroom. There’s only about ten people taking Italian in comparison to the rest of the grade taking French. There’s so many students taking French, in fact, that the teachers had to split the classes into three groups, each comprising of another twenty students. 

Louis wishes he could move to French. Originally, way back in sixth grade, he’d wanted to choose it, but his mom convinced him that taking Italian would mean less work. Turns out taking Italian gives him just as much work, it’s just _boring_ work.

When class starts Louis isn’t paying attention. The teacher introduces the new unit, writing short stories, which he can’t be assed to even pretend he’s interested in. All around him, his classmates are taking out their binders and copying down the notes written on the board. Louis groans. He wishes Eleanor was with him. Hell, he wishes Harry was with him. 

He inhales suddenly as he remembers something. Harry _is_ with him. With him in his head, in any case. Would he hate it if Louis tried to talk to him in the middle of lessons? There’s only one way to find out.

Similar to the first time he called out to him, Louis prepares himself before trying to talk to Harry. He props his folder up on his desk to make is seem as if he’s reading behind it and arranges his pencils and paper so he can quickly get back to work, if needed. Then he begins.

_Hey, Harry?_ he thinks, completely aware of how pathetic this is. Remember, Louis: Confidence is key. _How’s French?_

Surprisingly, Harry answers rather quickly. _Kind of boring,_ he responds. _We’re writing short stories._

_Oh, same._ Louis looks around the room at his classmates, who are engrossed in their work. _Well, at least my classmates are_.

_And what are you doing?_ Harry asks.

_Talking to you._

_Oh, sounds boring_.

Louis shrugs. _It’s alright_.

_You flatter me_. Harry sighs. _I can’t deal with French. I have no idea where to start with my story._

_At least you’re not stuck learning a language you already know,_ he complains.

_Oh wow how horrible,_ Harry replies sarcastically. _Imagine actually understanding what’s going on! That must be awful!_

Louis snorts, forgetting that he and Harry are not actually in the same room. The girl sitting in front of him, Lara Cornfield or something, turns around and asks him if he needs a tissue. 

There is a very awkward pause before he shakes his head and she turns back around.

_Well this is just… great._ He groans. _Lara thinks I’m insane._

_How so?_ Harry queries.

_Well I kind of started laughing to myself in the middle of class._

_Right._ He pauses. _Well it’s been fun, but I should really be getting some actual work done._

_Yeah, same._ Louis turns his attention back to his empty paper and begins writing.

*

When the bell rings he gathers his things and leaves the classroom as soon as possible. Next period is history, which means the new student will be there. Normally he’s not psyched to meet new people, but since Eleanor’s move he’s been in the market for more friends, so he wants to make the best impression possible on them. 

As soon as he’s in the hallway he makes a beeline for his locker, where he exchanges his Italian notebook for his history and maths binders. He shuts the door with a bang and nearly jumps when he sees Harry’s face directly behind it.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, pretending to calm his heart. “You scared me.”

“Oops,” Harry apologises, stepping away from the locker. “I just wanted to give you this.” He holds out a section of paper torn from the corner of a notebook. “My number,” he clarifies. “I wrote it down during French.”

Louis is in shock. A true state of shock. Upon this very crumpled up piece of paper stand seven numbers, seven beautiful digits, that will allow him to text and call Harry at will. It’s a symbol for the start of a friendship with the boy he has been creepily crushing on for over a year now. 

Harry frowns suddenly. “I just realised that was pointless. You don’t need my number. We can literally talk in our heads.”

Louis giggles. “True.”

Harry looks at him inquisitively. “Did you just… giggle?”

His face reddens. “I think…. I think I did,” he whispers.

Harry chuckles. “Well if it means anything I thought it was cute.” Oh boy, does that mean the world. By now he has fully accepted that Harry will eventually be the death of him. “Well, I’ll see you in history.”

“Alright. I’ll text you later so you have my number.”

“Sounds nate,” Harry says, grinning evilly.

Louis groans. “Please. Let me forget about that.”

“Never,” he says, poking him in the stomach before walking away. 

Well that’s… Great.


	4. Niall Horan

As soon as Louis enters the history classroom he’s approached by his teacher who grabs him by the arm (ouch) and pulls him in the direction of his desk. Sitting on the left half of it, the part that used to be taken up by Eleanor, is a brown-haired boy Louis has never seen before. Must be the new student.

Before he has time to think, the teacher is introducing herself to the student and lightly pushing him forwards to do the same.

“Hi, I’m Louis,” he splutters, rubbing his arm. “What’s your name?”

“Niall,” the boy answers. Huh. Niall. Suits him.

“Louis, I thought you could show Niall around. I know you and Ms. Calder were very close, so it’s only fitting you befriend her replacement.”

Louis nods at the teacher and then smiles awkwardly down at Niall. Great. He isn’t good at talking to people he doesn’t know, especially when he’s being forced to. Oh well. At least this Niall guy is hot. Soft brown hair, flannel shirt, broad shoulders. Yup, he definitely has a type.

He slides into the chair next to Niall as the teacher walks back up to the front of the room. Before he has the chance to say anything (thank god), she begins the lesson.

“Alright listen up!” The teacher waits until the entire class is watching her before continuing. “Today I’m gonna put you guys in groups for a debate to summarise our latest unit. But before we get to work, we have a new student in class.” She smiles warmly at Niall. “Why don’t you come on up here and introduce yourself?”

Niall stands up hesitantly and walks to the front of the class. When he reaches the blackboard he turns, looking out at the students apprehensively. He clears his throat. “My name is Niall Horan. I just moved here from France, but, uhh, I don’t actually speak French. I play guitar and soccer. Except for that, I’m a pretty boring person I guess.” He shrugs his shoulders and moves back towards his and Louis' desk.

“Okay, thank you.” The teacher applauds him awkwardly before continuing the lesson. “For the assignment you’re basically going to conduct a debate on our unit from the past few weeks: World War 2. This is going to be your grade on this unit, in place of a test. You will be paired together with the person with whom you’re sharing a desk. It’s due today next week. So Wednesday, for those of you who don’t know what day it is. I will come around in a moment and assign each group a specific topic.”

She walks over to Louis' table immediately. “You’re going to be doing the negative aspects of appeasing Hitler in the second world war. You’ll be up against Harry and Zayn, who will be doing the positive aspects.”

Louis nods. “Okay, cool. Will we have class time to work on this?”

“Yes, but not much.” The teacher pulls out a paper which reads Appeasement in the Second World War and slides it across the desk. “Now Niall,” she says, bending over in the creepy way that only teachers can. “I know you didn’t cover this topic in your old school, but I’m sure Louis will be more than happy to catch you up on everything we’ve been doing.”

Oh joy.

“Totally, yeah.” Louis smiles up at the teacher. Maybe if he sucks up to her, she’ll give him a better grade. “I’d love to help.”

“Ms Howard?” A small, mousy haired-girl timidly raises her hand and calls the teacher over. She smiles at Niall and Louis before walking over. “Can you explain what exactly my group is working on? I’m confused.”

“Who is your partner?” The teacher asks, seeing how the chair next to the girl is empty. “Oh, Mr Payne, right?”

“Yes.”

Louis grimaces and looks away from the exchange. Below his breath, he whispers, “poor girl. Her partner is almost never in school.”

“Who’s her partner?” Niall asks, turning towards him.

“Mistah Payne,” Louis clarifies, mocking the teachers accent. “Haven’t seen him in a while, though. No idea what’s up with him.”

“Oh.” Niall pulls his chair up closer to the desk and takes a look at Louis' notes, which are spread across it. “Can you explain what we’re doing? We were learning about the French Revolution when I left my school.”

“Of course.”

*

“So they basically gave Hitler a little bit of what he wanted to satisfy him?” Niall flattens his notes against the desk and reads them over.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like when you give a child a piece of candy so they stop crying about wanting ice cream,” Louis explains. Wow, he’s good at analogies.

“So Hitler is the child and the ice cream is Czechoslovakia?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“Which makes the piece of candy… The Sudetenland?”

“Exactly! See, you get it.”

Niall grins, accomplished, and tosses the paper to the side. “So then what specifically are we debating about?”

“Well, the Czechs didn’t agree to give the Sudetenland, it was given to Germany by Britain and France. We’re talking about why that was a bad choice, and Harry and Zayn are doing why it was a good choice.”

“Okay, well, should we start a script then?”

“Yeah.”

From across the classroom, Louis sees Harry and Zayn goofing off instead of being productive. He feels a flare of jealousy erupt inside him when Zayn leans over to whisper something directly in Harry’s ear, making him laugh. He wants to be doing that. _He_ should be making Harry laugh. Especially now that they have this weird connection, shouldn’t they be best friends?

Speaking of best friends, oh god. He has to call Eleanor and catch her up on the news. He hasn’t talked to her since the last time he called her, on Monday, and even then they didn’t speak for long. They promised each other not to fall out of touch when she left: He couldn’t let that happen.

Realising he’s still openly staring at Harry, he shakes himself from his thoughts and turns back to his desk.

*

When class ends Niall follows Louis out of the room towards his locker. “So, what do you think?” He asks, pulling his maths textbook out of his bag and pushing it into his locker.

“Of the school?” Niall asks. Louis nods. “It’s nice so far. This girl, Allison, came up to me before class started and gave me a bit of an introduction. She seems nice.”

“Yeah. I haven’t talked to her much but I’ve heard she is.” Louis reaches further into his bag and takes out the crumpled history worksheet, which he crams into his locker. “What do you think of everyone else?”

“I haven’t spoken to anybody but you and Allison but I think I have a pretty good idea of who’s who around here.”

“What do you mean?” Louis asks, pulling his maths book out and dropping it into his bag. He shuts his locker and walks off to the lunchroom, gesturing for Niall to follow him.

“Well, Harry and Zayn are obviously the more popular ones. I’m guessing they play soccer? I heard that’s the major sport here.”

“Yeah, don’t you play?”

“Yep. It was a bit of a thing at my old school too. We didn’t have cheerleaders, though. I’m assuming you do? Some of the girls I saw were wearing uniforms.”

“Yeah, we kind of have a stereotypical high school thing where the guys play soccer and the girls do cheerleading. Very original.” Louis pushes open the doors to the lunch room and leads Niall to the lunch line. “So what was France like?”

Niall shrugs. “It was chill, I guess. I had a bunch of friends but we weren’t, like, popular or anything.”

“Yeah, same with me.”

“You were friends with the girl who was here before me, right? Emilia or something?”

“Eleanor,” Louis corrects. “And yeah, I was. We had a bigger group last year but literally everyone left but the two of us. Then she left too so I’m kind of on my own now.” 

When they get to the part of the line where the lunch ladies are serving food, Louis leans towards the glass to look at the meal. “Oh shit,” he exclaims. “They’re serving waffles.” After making that extremely fascinating statement, he holds up his tray, letting a member of the lunch staff drop a portion on his plate. Niall does the same and then, carefully balancing their trays, they grab some napkins and enter the seating area of the room.

Niall leans over and says, “you guys seriously have circular lunch tables? I feel like I’m in high school musical.”

Louis laughs. “Oh, I wish.” He sets his lunch tray down on a table halfway through the room and signals Niall to sit down. “So,” he starts once they’re both sitting, “Tell me about yourself, I guess.”

Niall quickly swallows his bite of waffle and replies. “Well, I have an older brother who’s off in college in France. I do soccer, but… you knew that. I’m also Italian, which is weird considering I’ve lived in France my whole life.”

“You’re Italian?” Louis perks up. Finally, another Italian! “That’s awesome! Do you speak it?”

“Yep, it’s my first language actually.”

“Literally same.” Louis grins and takes a sip from his water cup. “Do you speak it at home?”

“Not with my brother but with my parents. They don’t speak much English.”

“Both my parents speak English fluently but we speak Italian together. And I don’t have any siblings.”

“Oh, that’s cool.” Niall swallows his bite of food and looks around the room. For a moment, the atmosphere around them becomes awkward, both not knowing how to continue the conversation, before Niall says, “so, do you have a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend, I dunno.”

Louis shakes his head. “Nope, I wish.” He grins. Although it’s sad (to him) that he doesn’t have a boyfriend yet, it’s refreshing to hear someone not automatically assume he’s straight. Which raises the question, should he tell Niall about Harry? They’re obviously going to become friends, why not tell him? But then again, Niall is a hot soccer player, just like Harry. He’s probably going to become popular and, if that’s the case, it’s not the best idea for Louis to come out to him too soon. He shakes his head. Niall is staring at him, concerned. Probably shouldn’t have zoned out so hard. “Are you dating anyone?” He asks, raising his eyebrows and shoving a bite of waffle into his mouth to cover up the fact that he just zoned out so hard his head hurts.

“Yep,” Niall answers, perking up. “Her name is Thalia.”

“Oh, wow. Very Percy Jackson like.”

“Very what?”

“Oh god, don’t tell me you don’t know Percy Jackson.”

“I don’t, sorry?”

“Oh, it’s iconic. The movies are shit, though.”

“I assume you’ve seen every one then?” Oh, Niall. Who knew he has a sassy side?

“Of course.” Louis pretends to look affronted. “I’m not a heathen.”

Suddenly the lunch bell rings, signalling the end of the lunch period and their conversation. Lunch was… suspiciously short. Louis shows Niall where to drop his tray and leads him out of the room. The two part ways at the doors, Louis heading to math while Niall leaves for an introductory meeting with the school director.

*

For the next few minutes before class starts Louis wanders the halls alone walking in the direction of math. He makes it just as the late bell is ringing and drops down into the his seat, which is towards the back of the class and just so happens to be at a perfect angle to stare at Harry. Thank god for the seating order. He sits to the right of the classroom in the middle, next to a girl who, despite sitting next to her for the better part of a month, he’s never had a single conversation with.

The lesson passes quickly. The girl, Stella apparently, asks him for an eraser about halfway through. Handing it to her is the only thing he accomplishes in the entire hour. Before he knows it the final bell is ringing and the usual rustle of paper is replaced by the sound of chairs scraping against the floor and bags being packed. Time is moving suspiciously quickly today.

Louis grabs his bag and runs out in the direction of his locker. He empties almost the entire contents of his bag into it before grabbing his stuff for tomorrow. Chemistry, history, art. Alright. He shoves the three books into his backpack, shuts his locker and walks down the hallway towards the stairs. From the top of them, he can see Niall standing in the entrance hall with the principal. He walks down to the ground floor and waits at the bottom of the banister for the conversation to end.

“If you have any problems, just let us know,” the principle says, faking enthusiasm. “Did you enjoy your first day with us?”

“Yes sir,” Niall responds, obviously itching to get away. “I look forward to being a student here.” Oh, he’s good at sweet talking.

“Very good to hear that! Well, I’ll see you around.” The principle shakes hands with Niall before walking off, nodding at Louis in acknowledgment before disappearing around the corner.

Niall sighs and turns to walk out the front door, not noticing Louis standing where he is. Louis follows him out the front door (god he’s a quick walker), and catches up to him at the bottom of the front steps. “Hey, Niall!” He calls. “Wait up!”

“Oh, hey,” Niall responds, turning around and smiling. “How was math?”

“Really boring.” They begin walking off the school grounds together. “How was the director meeting?”

“Eventful. You didn’t warn me the principle was a _creep_.”

“Yeah, he’s a little weird sometimes.” When they reach the end of the path and step onto the sidewalk, Louis asks, “which direction are you headed? I’m going right.”

“Same,” Niall answers. “Hey, do you wanna come over and work on the history project?”

Does he have other plans? No. “Yeah, sure.”

*

Ten minutes later they reach Niall's house. It’s a nice two storey structure nestled between two trees, and they pass through a gate before Niall pulls out his keys and lets them into the house. It’s eerily silent, which Niall says is because both of his parents are out of town. Louis drops his bag next to the front door and walks further in.

Niall leads them up to his room, where they sit together at his desk. If it were anyone else Louis was working with, he wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Seeing as it’s Niall, though, (who he’s still trying to make a good impression on), he focuses. For the next hour and a half all that’s said is project-related and by six o’clock, they’ve already finished.

“Well,” Niall says, leaning back in his chair. “That’s done.”

“Yup,” Louis offers intelligently. He closes the google document and shuts his laptop. “Can’t believe we finished the project the day it was set. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever done that.”

“Same.” Niall closes his notebook and shoves it into his backpack. “Well, do you want dinner? We can make mac and cheese.”

“Okay.” Louis grabs his laptop and takes it downstairs with him.

They head to the kitchen and Louis sits on one of the barstools as Niall pulls a pot out of the cupboard and grabs a box of mac and cheese. He fills the pot with water and puts it on the stove to boil. “So,” he says, leaning over the counter. “What’s the deal with you and Harry?”

Shit. “What do you mean?”

Niall shrugs. “Nothing really. He just stares at you, like, a lot.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I thought maybe you were dating but then you told me you don’t have a boyfriend so I guess not.” He pushes off the counter and turns back to the stove, lifting the lid of the pot half a centimeter to check if the water was boiling already. “I was just wondering.”

“Well, we’re not dating,” Louis clarifies. “We’re not really even friends.”

“Aren’t you?” Niall closes the lid again and turns around. “I saw you leave the school together yesterday when I came for last period.”

“You were there?” Louis asks. Shit, he feels like an idiot. Of course he missed his chance to meet Niall a day early because he just _had_ to skip school with Harry.

“I wasn’t in class, the director just showed me around the school.”

Thank god. “That makes sense.”

“So you skipped with Harry?” Niall prompts him to continue. 

“Yeah, well. We’re not really friends but we’re on good terms. He just asked me if I wanted to skip philosophy because I was the only one still in the hallway.” Technically not true but what was he supposed to do, tell Niall about the mind reading? No thanks, he’d rather not make himself sound absolutely mental.

“Not gonna lie man, I think Harry’s into you.”

“Really?” Louis can’t help the grin that breaks out over his face. Wait, no. Act straight. Niall doesn’t know. “Nah, we never talk. Also he’s straight.”

“If you say so.” Niall answers. “And what about you? Do you like him?”

Louis inhales sharply. When he decided not to tell Niall about his crush on Harry, he figured he would only be lying by omission. He never expected to be put on the spot like this. What does he say? Shit, he’s been quiet for too long. He needs to say something. Fuck, why won’t his mouth work?

“Sorry,” Niall says suddenly, cutting into his thoughts. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Louis smiles weakly. “That’s alright. Just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” He neatly avoids answering the original question by then saying, “I think the water’s boiling. Might be time to add the pasta.”

*

They finish dinner quickly, really quickly, and load their plates into the dishwasher. Then Niall leads them to the living room. As soon as they walk in Louis excitedly exclaims, “you have a fat boy?? I love those!” He runs towards the beanbag and launches himself onto it.

Niall laughs and drops down onto the couch. “Do you wanna watch a movie?”

“Nah, let’s talk. I still don’t know much about you.”

“Alright,” he says, pulling a pillow out from underneath him and adjusting his position. “What do you wanna know?”

Louis shrugs. “Just about your friends and stuff.”

“There’s not much to know. My friend group only has, like, five people, and I never really talked to anybody else.”

“Can you give me, like, a quick breakdown of them?” Louis asks.

“Sure, uhh. There’s Thalia, my girlfriend; Joseph, my best friend; Spencer, who I kind of don’t like; and Michelle, who came new at the start of the year.”

“Shit,” Louis laughs, “what did Spencer ever do to you?”

“We dated for a few months in ninth grade,” Niall explains. “It did not end well. Lots of ninth grader drama.”

“Ah,” Louis nods. “Ninth grade is the worst.” So wait, is Niall bisexual? He must be, if he dated a guy. Well in that case… “So about Harry,” he says randomly. 

Niall looks taken by surprise but answers, “yeah? What about him?”

“We’re not really friends but-” He pauses. Rip it off like a bandaid. “I like him.”

“Ah.” Niall leans back onto the couch. Why does his face look like he expected Louis to say that? “For how long?” He asks.

Louis shrugs. “Bout a year.”

Niall lets out a low whistle. “Damn. You must really like him then.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You ever planning on telling him?”

“God no.” Louis can see it now, him confessing to Harry. He can practically smell the rejection. “I’m just gonna wait until I’m over him.”

“That’s valid,” Niall chuckles. “So, tell me about Harry! What’s he like?”

Louis feels like he’s in an interrogation. “Well,” he says, “he’s kind of annoying and I lowkey hate him.”

Niall nods solemnly. “Sounds like a catch.”

“But like, ugh.” Here comes the sappy stuff. “He’s just so… Nice. Like, I’ve never seen him be mean to anyone. And he’s smart too! Love me an intelligent guy. And, okay, not to be too gay or anything, but he’s really fucking hot.”

“That’s true,” Niall agrees. “You’re really never going to tell him though? I swear he’s into you.”

Louis shakes his head. “No he isn’t. Also, no. I absolutely will not be telling him.”

“I think you should.” Laughing at Louis' appalled expression, he explains, “when I was doing the school tour on Tuesday, the principle brought me to the student council meeting during lunch. They were talking about doing a secret-note thing for valentine’s day. You can write him one of those!”

“Oh, yeah,” Louis nods. “They do those every year. Nobody but the popular kids get notes, it’s kinda sad.”

“Well, why not write Harry one? It’s anonymous.”

Louis shakes his head quickly. “It isn’t really. He’ll definitely recognise my handwriting.”

“Suit yourself.”

“So are you bisexual then?” Louis asks, the question from before still prominent in his mind. What, he’s curious!

Niall frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you dated that Spencer guy back in ninth grade.”

“Oooh.” Niall laughs. “Spencer is a girl.”

“Ah.” So he was wrong. Cool. He checks his watch. Seven o’clock already? Time is a crazy bitch, moving that fast. “I should be getting home now.”

“Oh, okay. Let me show you to the door.”

Ooh, fancy. They walk to the front of the house together, where Louis slides his laptop into his backpack and pulls a strap onto his left shoulder. Wearing backpacks properly is boring. He opens the front door and steps out onto the path. “See you tomorrow, Ni.” 

“Ni?” 

“Eh. It's kind of cute.” Louis shrugs.

“Well see you tomorrow, buddy.”

“Is that really the best nickname you could come up with?”

“Well Louis isn't exactly the best name for making nicknames out of!” Niall argues.

“Some people call me Li,” he suggests.

“Nah, that’s like a pet name. Not gonna say that.”

Louis laughs. “Suit yourself. Well, bye.” 

“See you tomorrow.” Niall waves as he closes the door on Louis making his way down the path to the gate, where he puts on his headphones.

*

Louis makes it home roughly ten minutes later. It’s very convenient that both Harry and Niall (his only friends now) live within walking distance of his house. He brings his bag into the living room and throws himself onto the couch to watch Netflix. His thoughts soon turn to the valentine's day thing Niall had reminded him about. _Should I write him a valentine?_ he wonders.

_Write whom a valentine?_ Harry answers.

Oh right, Louis had nearly forgotten about the mind reading. _Nobody,_ he thinks. _Niall says I should write someone a valentine. Not gonna happen though._

_Oh, you hung out with Niall today?_

_Yeah, he’s really cool._ Louis grins. Thank god he has a new friend now that Eleanor is gone.

_I haven’t talked to him yet but he sounds nice,_ Harry replies. _But about the valentine’s thing, why not write the guy one? You never know what could happen._

_No way. He’s straight as hell. I don’t want to embarrass myself._

_Whatever you say, sunshine._ Harry sounds disappointed. Or bored? Louis has never been good at reading between the lines.

_Well anyways, I’m going to bed now,_ he says. _See you tomorrow._

_Bye._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more coming tomorrow i'm posting all chapters at once but it's 1am and i'm gonna go to bed now so..the rest tomorrow


	5. I forgot what happened in this chapter but here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's short for reasons i honestly can't explain

The next day, a Thursday, Harry is acting a little… off. It’s not very noticeable: In fact, nobody but Louis seems to realise. It’s obvious to him, though.

The evidence? Harry’s hair is un-styled and he hasn’t covered it with a beanie, which is un heard of in his books. The other piece of evidence, and this may just be Louis being clingy, is that he hasn’t spoken to him all day. Ever since they found out about the mind reading on Monday (or, well, Louis did), they’ve talked between classes constantly. Today, however, it’s obvious that Harry’s avoiding him. They’ve had several opportunities to talk, both before school and after the end of their first period, Chemistry, but Harry chose to talk to his soccer friends instead. 

Whatever, Louis' just being clingy, right? He pushes his thoughts to the back of his mind as he makes his way to the history classroom, where Niall should be waiting for him. Sadly, Niall chose to take biology instead of chemistry, so Louis was alone for the first two hours of the day. He doesn’t really mind, though.

He walks into the history classroom a few minutes early. There are only two other students in there and, just his luck, it’s Harry and Zayn. They’re talking in hushed voices and don’t acknowledge Louis coming in. Well, Harry doesn’t. Zayn looks at him and smiles awkwardly, elbowing Harry, who continues to avoid eye contact. Which, alright. It’s not like Louis particularly cares whether Harry wants to talk to him or not. It’s whatever.

He walks to his seat and drops his bag down next to it. There’s still a few minutes until the teacher is due to come, and Niall isn’t here yet, so Louis pulls out his phone to avoid the uncomfortable silence with the only tactic he knows: Pretending to text someone. It’s remarkably awkward. Harry and Zayn seem to realise that Louis is subconsciously listening to their conversation and begin talking about soccer-related things. Time passes quickly, thank god, and the rest of the class slowly starts filing in before the teacher comes too.

Niall comes in a minute late and immediately rushes over to Louis. “Sorry,” he says, out of breath as he drops his bag next to his seat and throws himself in it. “I went to the wrong side of the school and had to run over here.”

“That’s alright.” Louis doesn’t really mind. In this lesson they’re supposed to be working on their projects, which they finished last night, so it’s not like they have anything to do. “Hey,” Louis says suddenly. “Do you think Harry is ignoring me?”

“What?” Niall looks over at Harry. “I dunno, man, he just seems to be working right now. What makes you think he’s ignoring you?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “He just hasn’t talked to me since yesterday. I’m probably crazy though.”

“Maybe,” Niall agrees. “Don’t worry, I’m sure everything’s fine.”

*

The first time Harry pays any attention to him all day is at lunch, where he says a grand total of two words.

“Move over.”

Louis looks behind him. Oh, he was standing in front of the salad bar. “Sorry,” he apologises sheepishly, and moves away. Harry doesn’t reply.

It’s all very confusing, and Louis can’t say he has the least bit idea as to why Harry’s giving him the cold shoulder. He pushes the thoughts to the side as Niall walks over to him from the lunch line. “Alright, let’s find a table!”

“Sure,” Louis says nonchalantly. If Niall notices his odd demeanour, he doesn’t say anything. Which honestly? Thank god. 

They sit down at an empty table on the right side of the room, next to the windows, and start eating. “So,” Niall starts “What’s the deal with Harry? I see what you meant before, he totally ignored you just now.”

“I know, right?” Louis groans, rubbing his temples. “I have no idea what’s going on,” he says earnestly. “I’m so confused. Maybe he’s just in a bad mood?” 

Suddenly there’s an eruption of noise from the jock table. Harry is gripping Zayn’s arm, howling with laughter as the rest of the table lets out amused chuckles. Louis frowns at the sight. So Harry doesn’t have a problem with people in general, just him. Nice to know.

Niall raises an eyebrow and turns back to him. “I don’t know about you,” he says, “but I don’t think he’s in a bad mood.”

Louis grunts in acknowledgement. He’s still looking at Harry, hoping to catch his eye. but Harry doesn’t even spare him a glance. Something is definitely off.

*

For the rest of the day Louis is completely and utterly distracted during his lessons. He tries to pay attention, he really does. But he feels like Harry’s silence is a more pressing matter than learning about the electromagnetic spectrum.

Is Harry mad at him? Fuck, is he realising he doesn’t want to be friends with him after all? To be fair, it’s not like he had a choice in reading Louis' mind. It would be totally understandable if he doesn’t want to talk. But shit, if that doesn’t hurt like a bitch-

He shakes the thought out of his head. _No_. Harry likes him. Not in the way Niall seems to think he does, but as a friend. After all if he didn’t, why would he ask Louis to hang out so often? Wouldn’t it just be easier to ignore him?

_Well, that’s what he’s doing right now_ , Louis realises. It’s entirely possible that Harry used to like him but lost interest after realising how weird he was. Could that be it? Okay, he needs to stop. He’s being paranoid and it’s not helping the situation at all. He just needs to wait out the rest of the lesson and confront Harry.

*

After the bell rings, he pushes his way out of the classroom and tries to find Harry. He has a right to know why he’s being ignored, especially considering they’d been hanging out so much so past few days. That means they’re friends, right? And friends can call each other out on things.

He finds him standing by the water fountain with a dazed expression, hands in his pockets and head leaning back on the wall. Which is. Hot.

Anyways.

Louis walks up to him. “Hey!” he starts, but is silenced by Harry holding up a finger to his lips. He crosses his eyes and looks down at it. “What’ re you-”

“Shhh. My head hurts. Walk me home.”

He frowns. The fuck is this? Harry has ignored him all day and the first thing he says is a demand for Louis to walk him home. He’s about to say something when Harry pulls his arm in the direction of the front doors, obviously wanting them to leave the school together. That’s probably for the best. A moment longer and Louis might have said something he would later regret.

He still needs to be careful. As much as it feels natural between them—this friendship—Harry’s still the most popular guy in the grade, and fucking up a chance at friendship with him could seriously mess up his reputation.

They’re silent until they reach the sidewalk, where Harry points them to the right at the same time as Louis begins to speak. “So I wanted to ask-”

“I know.” Harry interrupts. “You want to know if I’ve been ignoring you.”

“How did you-”

“I can hear your thoughts, remember?” Harry sighs. “I just haven’t been having a good day.” Then, so quiet it’s almost a whisper, he adds, “they don’t like me.”

“Who?” Louis questions, confused.

“My crush.” Harry groans. “God, I feel so stupid saying that. Like I’m in 6 th grade or some shit.” His arms hang limply at his sides, only swinging slightly with every step instead of punching the air wildly with every point he makes like they usually do. Which, fuck. He likes the girl a _lot_ more than Louis thought he did. “I just- Well I knew they didn’t like me back, but it hurts to have confirmation, you know?”

He frowns. “What do you mean confirmation?”

“There’s this guy that I always see them with. And I guess they could be friends, sure, but I dunno, they seem really close. Zayn told me he’s sure the person I like likes me back, but what does he know? It’s not like he’s some kind of romance expert all of a sudden.”

“How are you so positive Zayn is wrong? Maybe your crush is just trying to make you jealous. Why does Zayn think she likes you back?”

“Always staring at me, apparently. They also blush a lot when we talk, which, to be honest I have kind of noticed but like, that could just be because I’m intimidating.”

“You are pretty intimidating,” Louis agrees. “But, honestly I’ve never heard of a person blushing out of intimidation. At the same time though,” he adds quickly, realising he now needs to cover for why he blushes so much in Harry’s presence, “maybe she’s just one of those people who blushes a lot.”

“Naw, thanks,” Harry replies sarcastically. “Really lifting my spirits here.”

“Honestly, why don’t you just go for it? I mean, you’re popular and all. It’s not like she’s going to say no.”

“What?” Harry frowns. “I don’t want to date someone who only likes me cause I’m popular. I want to date someone who likes _me_.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. All I meant was your crush has no reason not to like you back.” Careful, Louis. Don’t give too much away.

“Yeah, well, they found a reason.” Harry sighs dejectedly. “Normally I’m pretty optimistic about things like these but I dunno, I don’t think they’ll ever like me like _that_.”

He scoffs. “I doubt that. Not gonna lie Harry, you’re kind of a catch. If she doesn’t like you back it’s her loss.” 

Hey, woah, where did this confidence come from? He needs to be careful about what he says before he accidentally exposes himself. But _you’re kind of a catch_ , seriously? Does he have zero brain-to-mouth filter?

“You think so?” Harry looks over at him, beaming. Huh, guess the pep talk was the right choice. “You really think they could like me back?”

“Definitely.”

*

They pass by a small library on their way down the Main Street. Louis knows he has to take a right soon, so he nudges Harry and asks him which direction he’s headed.

“Straight ahead for another block,” Harry says, pointing forward. He sticks his hand back in his pocket and doesn’t say anything for a second. Then- “hey so I gave you my number and you never texted me?”

“What? That was yesterday.” He pulls out his phone. “But I’ll text you right now, if you really want.”

“No, that’s fine. I just, I thought you would maybe want to talk a bit?” Harry sounds a little shy. Why is he so nervous? It’s out of character. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, yeah, I’ll text you tonight.” Louis slides his phone into his back pocket and clicks his tongue. They’ve nearly reached the crossing where he needs to turn. “This is where I leave.” He smiles and nods at Harry before walking towards the zebra crossing.

“Hey, Louis?” Harry calls out.

He turns around. “Yeah?” 

“Thanks for the pep talk before.”


	6. Snow days

It’s been too long since Louis has called Eleanor. With the chaos of meeting Niall and finding out Harry Styles can _read his fucking mind_ he’d forgotten to text her. That and the fact that she was still settling into her new school meant they hadn’t talked in a while. She doesn’t know about the weird mind-connection yet.

Time to change that.

As soon as he enters his room, he presses Eleanor’s Skype contact to call her. She picks up so quickly Louis nearly jumps in his seat. “Hey boo!”

“Hey!” He replies. Straight to the point, okay. “I have a problem.”

Eleanor snorts. “That’s news. Let me guess, Harry breathed near you today?”

“What? No. Shut up.”

“Is it Harry-related, though?” She raises her eyebrows. “Usually when you’re freaking out it’s got something to do with Harry.”

Fuck. She knows him too well. “Yeah, okay, it’s Harry-related. But this time it’s serious!”

“As serious as the time he smiled at you and you nearly creamed your pants?”

“Eww, gross. Stop it.” Louis gags and covers the screen. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

“Am I wrong though?” She pulls a got-you-there face and points at him. “You have a problem.”

“Yes, I’ve already admitted to that. But let me tell you about my new problem!”

“Wait, wait, let me guess!” Eleanor claps excitedly. “Um, he asked you to move to Antarctica with him and raise penguin babies.”

“Now look, if you have nothing useful to say don’t say anything at all.”

“That’s very rude.” She crosses her arms and pouts. 

“Shh, okay.” Louis groans. Eleanor can be _so_ insufferable sometimes. “My problem is that… Harry can read my mind.”

Eleanor snorts. “Okay.”

“No, seriously. I found out on Monday.”

“Ah, the first day at school without me?” She nods. “How convenient.”

“No, really-”

“Look, Louis,” Eleanor snaps suddenly. “I haven’t talked to you all week and I’d really rather hear about important things.”

_Why won’t she believe me?_ _To be fair, I wouldn’t believe her either if she said someone could read her mind._ “I’m not lying, but I have no way to prove myself right now so I’ll leave it.” This is aggravating.

“Okay, well, give me a rundown of your week before I tell you about my new school, yeah?”

“Alright.” He says back. Besides the mind reading thing, what else happened? “Well, Harry and I have started talking more because of the-”

“-the mind reading, yeah.” She waves her hand dismissively. “What do you mean? Are you friends now?”

“Kinda, yeah.” Louis shrugs. “I went to his house on Monday and we skipped last period on Tuesday-”

“You skipped school? What have you become…”

“I don’t know why I did it either. He convinced me.”

“So if Harry jumped off a cliff…”

“Fuck off,” Louis rolls his eyes. “I just wanted to hang out with him, is that a crime?”

“Alright, alright.” Eleanor backs off, her hands in the air. “Oh, have you met the new student yet? My mom talked to his parents over the phone the over day. They seem alright.”

“Yeah, he’s nice,” Louis agrees. “I, uh, I accidentally told him I like Harry.”

“You what?”

“We were over at his house the other day talking about ourselves and he said he’d dated someone called Spencer so I assumed he was bi and it just kinda slipped out.” He takes a deep breath.

“Let me guess, Spencer was a girl?”

“Yeah. But it doesn’t matter. He didn’t care at all. I think he was expecting it.”

Eleanor hums in acknowledgement.

“Oh also he thinks Harry is into me,” he adds, wanting to see her reaction to the idea.

She just laughs. “He probably is, honestly. That man is _not_ straight.”

What? Why does everybody think Harry’s into him? Not that he minds the thought, but still. He would notice if his crush liked him back. He’s literally always staring at him. And besides, if Harry really was into him why did he never say anything? He was the most popular guy in the grade and Louis literally only has one friend (who doesn’t even go to his school anymore). It’s not like Louis is out of his league or anything.

He shakes his head suddenly, throwing his mind back into the conversation he’s supposed to be having with Eleanor. “Sorry, I zoned out. Were you saying something?”

“Wait one sec,” Eleanor says, holding her hand up to the screen. “Harry just texted me.”

“Wait what?” He pulls out his phone and checks Eleanor’s instagram, which is still logged in from the last time she used his phone. Sure enough, there’s two texts from Harry in her DM’s. He opens them.

Louis’ telling the truth btw

about the mind reading

Eleanor furrows her brows and types out a message, which soon pops up on Louis' screen.

haha, proof?

Louis watches her, waiting for a reaction or a moment where she might finally start to believe them. For the most part, she still looks like she thinks they’re full of shit, but there is a little bit of doubt. 

Louis' phone buzzes again suddenly, but he’s too busy watching Eleanor to care. As she reads the new message, a dozen expressions run across her face before the final one settles in: Shock.

“Okay,” she says slowly, holding her screen up to the camera. “Now I believe you.”

Louis squints to read the message on the screen. It’s too blurry for him to make out any words, and he’s about to ask her to read it out when he remembers he has the same chat on his phone. He glances down at it.

i know he’s gay

His heart stutters. Somehow, despite how weird it is that his crush is one of the only people who knows he’s gay, it’s weirder to see him talking about it with other people.

“I can’t believe this.” Eleanor laughs. “Harry can read your friggin’ mind!! I thought you were full of shit until now, but I know you would never come out to Harry just to play a prank on me.”

“Exactly.”

“Now that I believe you,” Eleanor says, leaning forward creepily. “Tell me all about it.”

*

Regret. Absolute and utter regret. Because of Eleanor’s sudden willingness to talk all things Harry and mind-reading, they’d called for hours with no break and Louis ended up going to bed at one in the morning. He really shouldn’t be complaining, though. Eleanor went to bed at 6am, exactly one hour before her alarm was set for her to get up. 

He’s a sleep-lover though; he needs at least 8 hours to function properly. Perhaps it was this lack of sleep that caused him to sluggishly drag himself to school, not bothering to check his email for any updates before leaving. 

Even without the emails, he should have known something was wrong when he saw the sidewalks on his way to school lined with piles of snow almost as tall as him. And really, he should have realised what was happening when he walked onto the school grounds and didn’t see a single student.

So it’s entirely his fault that he’s standing here, in the middle of the second floor hallway of a completely empty high school, clutching his books like an absolute moron. Confused, he walks over to the windows and looks out. Five minutes until school is supposed to start, and not a single student is outside. He sighs and walks back to his locker to return his things.

He should probably check around the building before he leaves, though. He could be missing something. _I’ll just check the sports hall before I go, there might be an assembly._ He shuts his locker with a bang and walks down the hallway towards the stairs. If nobody’s in the sports hall, then he’ll go home. Can’t fault him for skipping school when there’s literally nobody else in the building.

Every hallway and classroom on the way is empty; even the lights are off. School is definitely cancelled or something. When he reaches the assembly room he sticks his head in quickly, eager to leave, when he sees a figure standing alone across the hall, dribbling a basketball. He narrows his eyes. Who the fuck? 

“Who’s there?” He calls out.

The figure turns around and holds his hands up defensively. “It’s just me.”

Alright, what is Harry doing in the middle of the assembly room? He squints at him before calling out, “what are you doing here?”

“Shh, we have to be quiet,” Harry shushes him. As he comes closer he’s quiet, but he continues the moment he’s standing next to Louis. “School got cancelled. Didn’t you see the snow outside?”

“Yeah, didn’t think anything of it though.” Because he’s an idiot, yes. Better not say _that_ in front of Harry. “So there’s no school today? Seriously?”

“Yep,” Harry confirms. “Found out about five minutes ago from Zayn. Of course, by then it was a bit too late cause I was already here.”

“Oh, that sucks.” Louis responds. “Now what?”

“Well we’re both here together, maybe we can hang out?”

Okay, yeah. He can do that. He wants to do that. “Wouldn’t you rather hang out with your soccer teammates though?” _Shut up, don’t tempt him._ Why is he complaining? He tries to backtrack. “I mean, isn’t Zayn free?”

“Nahh.” Harry shakes his head. “Zayn is hotboxing his bathroom with Shawn. That’s not really where I see my day going. And besides, I want to get to know you better.”

Louis hopes he doesn’t look too hopeful when he says, “really?” 

“Well, yeah.”

*

They end up going to Harry’s house (score!). It’s still snowing heavily outside and by the time they walk through the front door Louis is covered in snow, which is quickly melting into water droplets. He’s freezing. He slips off his jacket and hangs it up with trembling fingers. What? He’s small, small people get cold easily. It’s normal.

“Do you want dry clothes?” Harry asks suddenly, probably noticing how he’s shaking like there’s a small earthquake inside him. “You look cold.”

Oh yes. Yes _please_. Harry is an actual angel. “I am,” Louis shivers. “Do you maybe have a sweater I could borrow?” Oh, bold.

“Yeah, of course. Do you want anything else? Dry shirt maybe?”

“No thanks.” If he sat around Harry’s house wearing his _shirts_ , he might actually cry. 

“Okay, well, wait here I guess.” Harry turns and walks down the hall, disappearing through a small door at the end. 

Cool cool. Louis fiddles with his thumbs, looking around the entrance hall. It’s cute: There’s a large wooden chair next to the wall, beside which is a small table with a small picture on top of it. He squints and walks forward, kneeling in front of it. The picture is of a young boy, maybe 6 or 7, who’s holding a dripping chocolate ice cream cone and standing next to the entrance of an amusement park. Logically thinking, the boy is probably Harry.

Next to the picture is a small digital calendar, where Louis checks the date. 8 th of December. Perfect. If he remembers correctly, there should only be one more week of school before the Christmas holidays begin.

Harry returns then, holding a lavender sweater that will surely be several sizes too large on Louis. He stands up and accepts it gratefully, slipping it over his head and cuddling into it despite the fact that he’s practically drowning in material. 

“So, what do you wanna do?”

*

They watch Netflix in the end. Some show called Brooklyn nine-nine which isn’t as romantic as Louis might’ve hoped but, well, it’s alright. And besides, with Harry distracted by the TV he has the perfect opportunity to inch himself closer on the couch. They’d started out far apart. Originally Louis had sat down on the far end of it, but overtime he started trying to move himself further in. Currently they were only sitting a few inches apart.

He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t driving him crazy.

Being close enough that he could hear Harry’s breath next to him, and yet far away enough that they weren’t touching was starting to mess with his brain. 

_Well, if you want to sit closer to Harry you could just… Move._ Louis' thoughts, although right, are not being helpful. _This is your chance, just move!_ Okay, brain. Feeling daring, he shifts closer to Harry.

Harry inhales sharply and looks down to him. For one heart-stopping moment Louis was worried he ask what was happening or worse, push him away and leave, but then he clears his throat and asks him, “wanna cuddle?” He says it as though it were the simplest thing in the world. Is it? No. Not to Louis, at least.

He manages a weak, “sure,” before Harry’s moving closer to him and holding out his arms.

“Well?” he says, raising his eyebrows and motioning for Louis to come closer. Okay, so. This is happening. He leans into Harry and rests his head on his shoulder. And then they stay like that. Louis' practically sweating with nerves, which is unfortunate because Harry seems to be entirely unaffected by the whole ordeal.

*

The next day is Saturday and Louis wakes up at 1pm to his phone screaming in his ear. He reaches blindly for it, randomly smacking several blank spaces on his bedside table before grabbing a hold of it. Eleanor’s calling him. Great. He swipes right to accept the call and holds it in front of him as he pulls his covers around him and creates a cocoon of sorts for him to huddle in. 

“Hey boo!’ She starts excitedly. “What’s up?”

Louis groans. “I just woke up two seconds ago. I do not have the energy for your excitement right now.”

“Sorry,” she says, reaching for something off camera. Moments later she reappears with a hairbrush, running it through her thick brown hair. “I just got up an hour ago. I literally just finished getting dressed when you called.”

“Have you even had breakfast yet?” 

“Yep!” She says, holding the wrapper of a cereal bar up to the camera as proof. “As you can see I’m eating very healthy. This only has, what, like 20 grams of sugar?” 

Louis grins lightheartedly. “Same. Yesterday Harry and I had like four bowls of popcorn in one sitting!”

“Harry?” gasps Eleanor. “What? How?? Tell me everything!!” She places her laptop, which she is using to skype with Louis, on her desk and moves to sit on her beanbag.

“Eleanor,” Louis says, laughing. “You do realise I can only see the top of your head and eyes now?”

“Oh, whoops.” With strenuous effort she pulls herself up from her bean bag and walks to her desk chair, swivelling the seat around and dropping into it. “Now spill!”

“So, yesterday was a snow day. And somehow nobody but Harry and I missed the memo!”

“Hmph.” Eleanor makes a sound of contempt. “Sounds fake.”

“What.”

“You really think that was just a coincidence?”

“Umm… yeah?” Why wouldn’t it be?

Eleanor raises an eyebrow. “Did Harry have any bags with him?”

“Well… no.”

“Bro, I only left the school a week ago. I remember that the soccer team always has training after school on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

“Your point?” says Louis reproachfully.

“Well he obviously knew there wasn’t school yesterday, or he would've had his school bag or his soccer bags with him!”

“Well… Maybe he put them in his locker before I came!”

“Louis,” Eleanor chuckles. “One of the things I remember most vividly from our school was how much fucking soccer gear Harry always carried with him. I highly doubt he would have been able to fit a bag that size in one of our school’s tiny-ass lockers.”

“You have a point there.”

“Obviously.”

“But how would Harry even know that I would come to school?”

Rolling her eyes, Eleanor groans in frustration. “You are without a doubt the dumbest person I have ever met. He can LITERALLY hear your thoughts!!”

“Oh.” Louis shrugs. “That actually didn’t occur to me.”

“Dumbass.”

Louis gave her a pointed glare. “But why would Harry want to hang out with me? We’ve only been friends for like, a week.”

“Well, I can think of one reason.”

“And what’s that?”

“Louis,” Eleanor takes a dramatic pause and smirks. “Harry has the hots for you.”

“What? Dude!”

“Don’t dude me!” Eleanor retorts. “I’m right and we both know it!”

“If he had a crush on me why wouldn’t I have heard him think about me??”

“Well he can’t hear you think about him either, remember?”

“Well in that case I should at least hear that weird buzzing he always complains about.”

“You-” Eleanor slumps down in her chair, defeated. “You actually have a point there.”

“I know,” Louis says. “Although I really wish I was wrong. Harry having a crush on me would be awesome.”

“Yeah. Anyways, tell me what happened after you found Harry.”

“Right, so I walked up to him and he asked if he could come over to my house. And so then we went. And we watched Netflix. And kind of cuddled?”

“WHAT!”

“Yeah- he just randomly asked me if I wanted to cuddle, and-”

“HE SAID THAT?”

“Yes! Let me finish talking!”

“Sorry, it’s just- HE ASKED IF YOU WANTED TO CUDDLE??”

“YES!! Let me continue!”

“Of course. It’s just. Wow.” A look of shock was etched on her face, and her mouth was hanging open as though she was waiting for someone to spoon feed her.

“Close your mouth, you’ll swallow bugs that way,” Louis jokes.

She closes her mouth with a snap.

“So yeah, we cuddled. But it only lasted like twenty minutes before my mom called and I had to leave.” He stops talking and sighs.

“And then?” Eleanor prompts.

“Well then I left. Nothing after that.”

“Huh.” Eleanor pauses. “You mentioned the other day that you’ve already hung out before? What did you do then?”

“I went to his house on Monday, and a pizza parlour on Tuesday. And then back to his house on Thursday.”

Eleanor lets out a long, low whistle. “Damn. May as well just move in with him now. Nothing on Wednesday?”

“I was a Niall's house, working on a history project.”

“Who’s Niall?” Eleanor questions. This Skype call is turning into an interrogation.

“New student. He moved here from France. And get this, he also speaks italian!!”

“What, really?” 

“Yep! And it’s especially good because we can talk about Harry all we want without anyone hearing us. I mean, Harry still hears the buzzing and gets annoyed, but at least my classmates won’t understand anything!”

“Oh, like last year before Jeanne left and I spoke in French with her.”

“I guess.” Eleanor isn’t French, she’s just super pretentious and has been on three summer exchange programmes to France in the last four years. As one does.

“Last question, is the school still doing that valentine’s day thing they do every year? With the cards and stuff?”

“Oh, yeah. Niall tried to convince me to write Harry one, but that isn’t going to happen.”

“Why not? It’s anonymous.”

“I dunno. He’ll probably recognise my handwriting. And then I would have to keep it a secret that I sent him a card, and we both know I suck at keeping secrets.”

“That is very true, good point. So scratch the valentine’s day thing, how about-”

Just then Harry wakes up. He doesn’t say anything, but Louis hears him think about breakfast, which means he must have woken up during his skype call. This is not ideal. They can’t talk about Harry while he’s awake. He’ll hear buzzing and press Louis about his crush again. “Eleanor,” he interrupts. “Harry just woke up. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure, like what?”

“I dunno. When’s your family visiting?”

“Actually, about that. My mom’s going to book a flight for me soon. My parents are staying home while I come visit you!”

“What?? That’s awesome!! When’re you coming?” Louis cheers.

“During Christmas break!! I’m not sure what day, though. Probably a couple days after school ends. Try to hang out with Harry while I’m gone.” She winks.

“I was going to do that anyways, thanks.”

“Cool. Wait, one second.” She pushes her screen down slightly and Louis could hear indistinct conversation between her and her mom. A few moments later she pushes her screen up again. “Hey, I have to hang up, sorry. Mom wants to go to the mall. Did I tell you how my Dad broke my suitcase?”

“Haha, what? I don’t think you have.”

“Well,” she says, already laughing. “He sat on it by accident and, long story short, I need a new suitcase for when I come to visit you.”

“What? More context, please! How does someone accidentally sit on a suitcase?”

Winking, Eleanor waves into the camera and shuts her laptop, cutting off the connection and leaving Louis, still huddled in his blanket cocoon, alone in his room. With a groan he drags himself out of bed and walks downstairs to grab breakfast. He checks the clock. Nearly half an hour had passed since he had first started the call with Eleanor and he’s hungry. Time for food. He heads downstairs.

Once in the kitchen he spots a box of cereal on top of the fridge and has to stretch as much as he possibly can to grasp it. Using all of his 5 and a half feet of height (he’s… not tall) to make himself as long as he possibly can, he finally grabs a hold of the cereal box and drops it on the kitchen counter.

A few minutes later he’s turning on the TV, trying to find the perfect show to watch as he eats his breakfast. Finding nothing, he decides to eat in silence.

Ahh, Saturday mornings are the best.


	7. History Debate

The rest of the weekend passes in a blur of TV and skype calls (and a breakdown over the sheer amount of homework he has to finish before the Christmas holidays, it’s whatever). Before he knows it it’s Monday morning again and he’s leaving the house for the ten minute walk to school.

On the way he listens to his favorite playlist, calm bops. A song comes up and Louis immediately smiles. _Upside Down_ by Jack Johnson. The song aways makes him think of Harry. It’s not even like the lyrics remind him of his crush or anything, it’s mainly the feeling the song has. Whenever he hears it, he can’t help the smile that breaks out over his face: Just like when he hangs out with Harry. The song makes him happy, Harry makes him happy. It fits.

He turns the volume way up, which goes great for about a second before a hand clamps on his shoulder and scares the crap out of him. He turns to see Harry next to him. He must have been trailing behind him for the last block and a half.

“Hey!” He chirps, falling into step with Louis. He runs a hand through his hair, tousling it just the right amount to make him look somehow hotter then he already did. How does he know how to do that? Is there a class Louis can take? 

Louis quickly pulls out his earbuds and shoves them into his pants pocket. He smiles nervously. “Hey Harry.”

Harry looks at him, frowning. “You sick or something?”

“No, why?” He questions.

“No reason,” Harry shrugs. “You just seem a little… I dunno”

_Yeah, well it’s hard to function properly around someone this hot,_ Louis thinks. _Wait, fuck, Harry can hear me._

There’s a short pause. Nobody speaks and Louis prays to god that Harry won’t mention anything. Of course, because god is _not_ on his side, Harry chuckles lightheartedly and says, “you flatter me, Tomlinson.”

Louis almost breathes a sigh of relief but catches himself in time. He makes a mental note to stop doing stupid things like **forgetting people can read his mind.**

The rest of the walk passes quickly. Harry talks about soccer and Louis nods politely and makes sounds of agreement whenever it feels necessary. 

Now that’s character development. All of last week he’d been nervous about talking freely with Harry, scared he’d say something wrong and ruin their friendship. The fact that’s he’s letting himself have an open conversation with Harry is a step in the right direction. To be fair, the open conversation is literally just Harry talking at Louis, but its a start.

To think a week ago they had their first ever proper conversation, and now they’re walking together to first period! Wait, speaking of, what’s his first class? He has no idea. It’s Monday so… Math. He groans suddenly. Fuck, math. He left his book at home on his desk. “Do you have your math book with you?” he asks Harry as soon as there’s a pause in the story. “I forgot mine.”

“Yeah I do,” Harry answers. “But, Louis, we sit on opposite sides of the classroom. We can’t exactly share a textbook”

“Oh, true.” 

*

When they walk through the door of the math room, ironically, all the desks all have name tags on them. Name tags on the desks is high school-speak for a new seating order.

Sure enough, their maths teacher immediately walks up to them with a spring in her step and says, “thought we’d shake things up a bit! Go find your name-tag and introduce yourself to your new neighbour!”

Louis feels his heart sink a little. It’s not that he would particularly mind sitting next to any of his classmates, but he doesn’t exactly have anybody who’d be psyched to sit next to him. Of course it’s just his luck that Niall has math with Ms Fennell on the other side of the hallway, so there’s really nobody Louis could even hope to sit next to.

He walks between the desks slowly, looking for his name. When he reaches the third row he breathes a sigh of relief; at least he isn’t sitting in the front. Has Harry found his seat yet? He glances at him.

Harry’s standing at one of the desks in the final row with his bag in his hands. He drops it next to the chair he’s standing beside and takes a seat. Louis watches as he leans across to look at the name tag beside him. A small smile breaks out over his face. Maybe he’s next to that girl he likes.

“Hey, Louis!” He calls suddenly. 

Louis starts and quickly tries to act like he hasn’t been staring directly at him for the past thirty seconds. “Huh?”

“Your tag is over here.” He points his thumb at the seat next to his.

Sugar honey iced tea. Just g _reat_.

He takes a deep breath, steels his nerves, and walks over. Part of him feels like he’s walking on air, while another part of him feels as though he might be on the verge of shitting himself. It doesn’t matter which feeling is more prominent.

Either way, fuck yeah. He’s sitting next to Harry, his _crush_ , for the rest of the school year.

When he sits down he avoids eye contact. Oh god, now that he’s actually right next to Harry he has no idea what to say or do. Why didn’t he consider how awkward it would be? It’s not like they can talk: It’s just the two of them, sitting directly next to each other and not saying a word. And he has to spend the rest of the year like this. Oh joy.

The teacher waits for the room to be silent (it takes a while), before she claps her hands together and excitedly announces the lesson plan. “Today, as it’s the last week before Christmas break, I thought we’d do something fun! I’ve brought some A3 paper, so how’s about we make some math posters to spruce up the room!! Sound like a plan?”

Making math posters? Surely something only a math teacher could be excited about.

Harry lets out an audible groan. “I’m absolutely shit at drawing.”

Louis scoffs. Of course he would say that. “I’m sure that’s not true. You’re good at everything!” 

He should really learn when to stop talking.

*

Ten minutes later and, okay. Harry really cannot draw. “What’s that?” Louis asks, leaning over to inspect the weird drawing Harry has sketched (in permanent marker!) onto the paper. There are sticks poking out of an upright ovular shape. He thinks he knows what it is. “Is that supposed to be a cactus?”

“No,” Harry says grumpily. “That’s supposed to be a cat.”

“Oh.”

The strange sticks were apparently whiskers. Holy shit. Harry actually can’t draw to save his life. To be fair, it’s probably because he’s left handed.

Wait. He points down at Harry’s hand. “You’re left handed!”

Harry looks at him, confused. “Uh, yeah?”

Admittedly not that interesting of a fact.

Louis is right handed though. He and Harry could hold hands during class and both still be able to write just fine. How cute would that be? Him and Harry, holding hands. A nice thought, that. They’d be such a power couple walking down the halls hand in hand. Not that Harry would ever like him anyways, but the thought was nice. Would he be popular then, if they were a couple? He’d imagine so, yeah. It’d be hard to avoid his crowds of fans if they were together. 

He vaguely registers Harry saying something, but doesn’t hear it. “Sorry, can you repeat that?.”

“I asked if you’re thinking about your crush again,” Harry repeats. “I hear the annoying buzzing again. Please just ask the guy out already!”

It’s a weird feeling, being caught thinking about his crush by, well, his crush. But anyways. Ask him out? He scoffs. “Yeah, no. Not happening.”

“Why though? So what if he ends up not liking you? It’ll help you get over him.”

Oh, yeah. Ruin his life and his potential friendship with Harry to ‘help himself get over it’. What does he sound like, a crackhead? “No way,” he says firmly. “Even if he was nice about it, I don’t don’t want to ruin my friendship with him.”

“You’re friends with him?”

Oh shit. Again, Louis really needs to shut up sometimes. Maybe he _is_ a crackhead.

Harry is silent for a moment, just looking at him. Louis' just starting to worry he’s figured everything out, that he’s about to reject him, when he leans forward and asks softly, “Louis… It isn’t Niall, is it?”

Louis breathes a sigh of relief and unclenches his ass cheeks (when did they clench? _Why_ did they clench? Human anatomy is frightening). Also- “what?” Well, that isn’t the answer he was expecting. “No, it’s not Niall. Why would you even think that?”

“I dunno! He’s the only dude I know you’re friends with…”

“Okay, ouch.”

“Unless, wait, is it someone who left the school? Like Percy, maybe. You were friends with him, right?”

“No it’s not someone outside of school.” _Shut up, idiot._

“Well, who is it then?” Harry asks, exasperated. “Come on, man. Tell me!”

In this very moment Louis kind of wants to punch him in the face for being so oblivious. _Kind_ of. He keeps his emotions in check and instead opts for saying, “not gonna tell you. Not right now at least.” Not ever, why did he even say that? 

“Why not? I swear I won’t judge you or anything,” Harry insists.

“Well, why don’t you tell me who you have a crush on then? Initials H.T. Does that ring a bell?” He retorts. _Haha, got you there._

Harry shoots him an exasperated look. “That’s different, Louis. You might actually hate me if I tell you.”

“You’re so dramatic.” He rolls his eyes.

“Oh, come on.” Harry groans. “Tell you what, if you tell me your crush, I _might_ tell you mine.”

“You know, as enticing as that sounds I think I’m gonna pass.”

Harry pouts and turns back to the poster. “You’re no fun.”

Just as he’s about to make a sarcastic reply, the teacher calls out for him. “Louis?” she says. “There is a Niall here who would like to speak to you.”

Louis frowns and looks towards the door. “Why would Niall be here?” He asks.

“How should I know?” Harry replies.

Oops, he didn’t mean to say that out loud. He pulls a face at Harry before standing up and walking to the door. “Why are you here, Tom?” He asks when he's made it to the doorway Niall is standing in.

“There’s a wedding in my family so I’m flying to Italy day after tomorrow.” 

“Okay?” Louis chuckles, nonplussed. “You really came to my classroom just to tell me that?”

“Well, kinda?” Niall shakes his head. “What I mean is that you'll have to do the history debate alone, because I'll be in Italy.”

“What history debate?” Louis asks. Is he forgetting some kind of assignment? It wouldn’t be unlike him.

“Remember? The one on appeasing hitler? We’re going against Harry and Zayn?”

“Shit!” Fuck, he remembers now. “I have to do a debate alone??” 

“Yeah, just a heads up.”

“Shit, fuck. Niall I can't do that!”

“Why not? You can't look Harry in the eyes without drooling?” Niall laughs.

“No! I mean, yes! I mean- it's not that.” 

“What's the problem then?” He asks, confused.

“It’s- whatever. It's nothing. I'll be fine.” Louis sighs.

“Okay….” There is a bit of an awkward air surrounding them in the silence that follows. And yeah, maybe Louis shouldn’t be getting so worked up over doing a debate alone, but. Debates are one of those things where you need to think on your feet, and there’s nothing more stressful than doing that in front of an entire class of people. It sucks that Niall won’t be there to help. It sucks even more that if he fails, Harry will be right there to see it. 

Harry. Oh, speaking of Harry. “Dude, Harry thinks I have a crush on you.”

“You're joking,” Niall deadpans. “What an oblivious little shit.” He looks behind Louis to catch a glimpse of Harry. As soon as he sees him his back. “Don't look now, but Harry's looking right at you!”

Louis' eyes widen. “Really??” He immediately turns around to look behind him and, sure enough, Harry is staring at him with a rather calculating expression. Weirdly enough, the moment their eyes meet he knocks his pencil off his desk and bends over to pick it up. “Huh,” Louis mutters, turning back to Niall. He doesn’t now what to think about what just happened.

Niall smacks his arm. “I told you to not look! You’re the worst” 

Before Louis has the chance to make a (very witty) comeback, there is a distinct thump from the back of the classroom. He inhales and rolls his eyes. Then, with a pained expression, he asks, “did Harry just bang his head on the desk?” 

Niall nods, amused. “I have to go now. You should go kiss Harry’s boo boo, lover boy.”

He pulls a face. “I’m suddenly very happy you’re leaving.” Niall snorts and pulls him in for a hug before walking away. 

Louis returns to his desk at the back of the classroom, where Harry is now gingerly cradling his head. “How did you manage to do that?” He laughs. 

Harry groans. “Try being as tall as me and see how many things you bang into.”

“Oh. Yeah, I wouldn't know.”

Harry looks him up and down. “Obviously.”

“Okay, rude. I'm average height, you're just fucking giant!” 

“Whatever makes you happy.”

They turn back to their poster then, Harry resuming his cat-hybrid drawing while Louis draws random maths symbols across the paper. The lesson passes quickly, (there’s only 10 minutes left on the clock anyways), and they’re soon being ushered out of the room by the teacher. Harry makes a beeline to a group of soccer players across the hallway so Louis walks towards his locker by himself and swaps his binders.

He spots Niall by the drinking fountain at the end of the hallway and hurries towards him. As he’s walking, the soccer players pass by him and Harry, in the middle of telling some story, turns around and shoots him a smile. Louis blushes and smiles back shyly, so enraptured in the moment that he trips over his own left foot and stumbles forward.

Nice, Louis. That’ll get him.

Putting Harry out of his thoughts for the time being, Louis joins Niall at the water fountain and they walk together to the science classrooms. “When are you leaving for Italy?” He asks

“Thursday morning. So I’ll be here on Wednesday to prepare for the debate with you, but I won’t be there for the actual thing.” Niall replies. And, as an afterthought, he adds, “Why did you freak out when I said you’ll have to present alone?”

Louis looks down at his shoes. “It’s kind of stupid, really. I just get really freaked out by stuff like that. Just imagining everybody looking at me-”

“No, I get it. It isn’t stupid.” Niall reassures him. “Would it help you if we write out what you should say, word for word?”

“Yeah, actually.” Louis feels a bit sheepish for making Niall work harder just because he’s a nervous wreck, but Niall seems to understand.

They part ways on the second floor as Louis heads to chemistry and Niall to biology. Alone in class with no Niall or Harry to keep him company, Louis dozes off and doesn’t pay attention for the most part of the lesson. He wakes up briefly to jot down some notes on isotopes before falling asleep again. 

*

At the end of the day, with chemistry and two painful hours of basic Italian grammar behind him, Louis is about to leave (just as soon as he closes his locker—he’s struggling) when Harry comes up to him and taps him on the shoulder.

“Did you need anything?” Louis asks tentatively. He’s learned by now that Harry coming up and talking to him means he wants to hang out, which is usually synonymous with disaster. So he’s wary.

Harry looks him in the eyes for a moment before saying, “yeah, actually. I know you’re not a particularly sporty guy-”

“-okay, rude-”

“-but I was wondering if you maybe want to come to my soccer practice with me this Friday? And then afterwards to my house?”

He stares at Harry blankly for a moment. Squinting, he says, “okay. But I’m _really_ not athletic.”

“I know. That’s why I started with that.’ Harry grins. “But yeah, cool. I’ll text you.”

Louis nods at him before he walks away, pulling his phone from his pocket to check for any texts. Of course, the only person who’d texted him all day is Eleanor. Sad but expected.

_hei_

_got a flight for the first monday of christmas break, does that work for you?_

_i can stay at my grandma’s if you’re away_

He quickly confirms that the plans work for him before sliding his phone into his back pocket and walking towards the exit.

So, soccer and a sleepover with Harry. That should be fun.

While thinking about it, he suddenly remembers a critical detail. After soccer practice the players usually shower. Which isn’t usually a problem for him, as he isn’t on the team, but this time Harry will be there. In the showers. Probably naked.

Scratch that—definitely naked.

Shit. Fuck.

The last place a closeted teenage boy needs to be is in the showers with the guy he has a crush on. It’s self-explanatory. Trying to hide a crush? Don’t take a shower with them.

In panic, Louis texts Eleanor to tell her about his plans with Harry. She takes a moment to respond, and her answer is even less helpful than Louis could’ve imagined.

_you do realize the soccer boys shower naked after training?_

Yeah, thanks. He has realised that.

He quickly types out a reply. 

_What the FUCK am I supposed to do?? I can’t take a shower with Harry_

_Do I cancel on him?_

_Fuck_

_Eleanor_

_Help_

_Hello??_

She doesn’t respond. With an exasperated sigh Louis shoves his phone back into his pocket and leaves the school building.

*

Suddenly it’s Thursday, the day of the dreaded history debate. In the previous history lesson Niall and Louis prepared cue cards with everything he needed to say in bullet points, but he still wasn’t feeling too great about talking alone in front of the entire class. There was nothing he could do about it though. Currently Niall was sat on a plane to Italy and Louis was walking with heavy footsteps to his first class of the day, chemistry. Two periods of suffrage left until history. Great. At least he had a bit of time to psyche himself up.

*

Turns out god is working against him, and the two periods of chemistry pass lightening fast.

Well, you know what they say; time flies when you’re in a state of crisis! 

Or something like that.

Louis' heart is beating erratically as he walks into the history classroom, his shaking hands gripping nervously on to his cue cards. His jeans feel too tight and too loose all at once, and he’s breathing like a dying horse as he tries to calm himself down. Harry, bless him, immediately takes notice and walks over, concerned.

“You okay?” He asks softly.

Louis nods quickly, embarrassed to let Harry see him like this.

Harry frowns. “You sure?”

He shakes his head. “I’m just a bit nervous, I guess. It’ll go away.”

“You’ll be fine,” Harry reassures him, but he isn’t convinced.

“I just get really nervous talking in front of large crowds.”

“If you get nervous just look at me. You’re debating against me anyways, you don’t have to look at the rest of the classroom. Just me.”

“Okay.” The idea sounds dumb, but it’s worth a try.

He walks to his desk, Niall's absence now really setting in; (he never realised how lonely it was to sit alone at a two-person desk). The teacher is late so he takes the extra time to look over his notes.

*

Fifteen minutes later and, to his surprise, the debate isn’t that bad. He’s been talking in front of the class for five minutes already and he’s still breathing, so he’ll count that as a win. Harry’s advice was surprisingly helpful. He’s surviving by drowning out the rest of the classroom and only focusing on Harry, who’s sending him reassuring smiles every now and again. Not that it’s eradicating all fear: He still feels a mild need to shit his pants. But the feeling is most overpowered by Harry’s presence.

Huh, cheesy.

He stumbles his way through two cue cards of pre-made conclusion before his part of the debate is over. Fucking finally! Take that, stage fright. Now he just has to awkwardly stand in the front of the class as they give feedback on the debate. Harry and Zayn come from their side of the classroom and Harry moves to stand next to him, briefly touching his wrist as he says, “did it help at all? What I said?”

“Yeah, surprisingly,” Louis breathes. His senses are heightened and he is hyper-aware of his and Harry’s arms brushing against each other every now and again. “It wasn’t as horrible as I thought, once I could ignore the entire class staring at me.”

Harry smiles before their pleasant moment is interrupted by the history teacher. “Are you two going to pay attention or not?? Focus!” 

*

Louis walks slowly to the lunch line, thinking. Now that the debate is over, there’s only one day left for Louis to prepare himself for soccer practice with Harry. Harry, who will be wearing the horrible muscle shirts the boys varsity team always practices in. Those shirts are especially horrible for Louis because he (may) have a bit weak spot for Harry’s arms.

What? He’s hot. 

But now to the immediate problem. Niall, being on his way to Italy, could not be there during lunch to keep Louis company, so now he needs to find somebody who will, which will be hard. Being in an international school had resulted in all of his friends moving away the year before. Granted, he’d only had about three, a boy named Liam, another boy named Percy, and, of course, Eleanor. He hasn’t managed to stay in touch with Liam or Percy, which kind of sucks, but the worst part is that Niall is now in essence the only person he talks to regularly.

Besides, well, Harry. But Harry won’t want to sit with Louis during lunch. He always sits with Zayn and the rest of his popular friends. He’s not in the lunchroom yet, so Louis hefts his bag higher on his shoulder and leaves the lunch line before Harry can see him and invite him to the popular table out of pity. Because honestly, he probably would. 

If Louis has to be alone, he may as well pass the time by doing something productive, like doing homework. For the first time in his life, he willingly walks to the library.

What he doesn’t expect to see when he gets there is Harry, hunched over one of the tables, scribbling something on a piece of notebook paper. Assuming he’s doing homework Louis walks over and makes his presence known with a loud, “hello!”

Startled, Harry grabs the paper and holds it up to his chest, hiding the contents of the page. “Can I help you?”

“What’re you writing?” He asks curiously, setting his bag down on the chair across from him.

“Oh, nothing,” Harry responds curtly. A second later, after seeing Louis' instantly curious expression, he continues. “Do you remember H.T?”

He nods. How could he forget? H.T, the person who’s making Louis' already non-existent chances of being with Harry even smaller. He has no idea who she is, but he hates her.

Harry pauses, studying his expression before continuing. “I’m kind of drafting a note for them.”

“Note?” Louis questions. “What kind of note?”

Harry immediately looks away, lightly blushing. “For the valentine’s day thing. I’m writing one of those anonymous notes.”

He frowns, his eyebrows furrowing together. “But valentine’s day is ages away. Why would you start now?”

Harry shrugs. “I want it to be perfect.”

He bites his lip. “Wow. You must really like H.T, whoever she is.”

Harry nods shyly, a blush tinting his cheeks as he looks up at Louis. “Yeah,” he whispers, “I really do.”

Shit.

“Oh.” Louis wants to cry. Why does he want to cry? Fuck. He picks his bag up from the seat and says, “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“No, no.” Harry puts the paper face down on the table and clears his bag from the seat next to him. “Join me.”

“Nah, that’s alright.” He knows when he’s not wanted. “I should get going anyways. You know, art starts in forty minutes.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t know, I have English.”

“Right.”

He leaves quickly and spends the rest of the lunch break alone on the playground trying to psych himself up for tomorrow’s soccer practice with Harry. 

As long as he doesn't get hard or anything, he’ll be fine.

Hopefully.


	8. lacrosse and sleepover

Forget everything Louis ever said about not getting hard during soccer. It’s Friday afternoon: He’s fifteen minutes into practice and somehow already on the brink of being unsuccessful.

Nobody told him soccer was such a _gun show_. 

The team is on the other side of the field doing a pre warm-up because the coach still hasn’t shown up. It’s mostly eleventh and twelfth graders; Harry and Zayn seem to be some of the only tenth graders. And Louis too now, apparently. But he isn’t exactly doing much.

At least first term is over, if anything. If he embarrasses himself during practice, which is likely, there’s two (or three? who knows) weeks of holiday before school starts again and he has to face the team.

*

Another ten minutes pass before the coach hurries on the the field and blows his whistle to call everybody toward him.

Louis runs over and stands with the rest of the soccer team as they huddle in a circle around the coach. Harry comes up behind him and gently places a hand on Louis' lower back (what the _fuck_ ) as he listens intently to the instructions. 

“Today we’re going to take it easy during practice, cause it's the last before Christmas break,” the coach starts.

Louis breathes a sigh of relief. He is way too out of shape to take part in a normal soccer practice. 

Harry, ever the sporty one, lets out a groan but doesn’t complain.

“Alright!” The coach claps his hands together and beckons for the team to follow him. Harry removes his hand from Louis' waist and jogs after the coach. Louis does the same. 

The team runs a lap around the field together, with Louis already out of breath halfway, before coming to a rest where they started and arranging themselves into a circle. He’s trying to keep it on the down low that he’s panting, but Harry’s trying to hide a knowing smile from the other side of the circle and he suspects he might not be hiding it that well. Thankfully they start stretching then, which Louis can do pretty well because of his dark childhood as a dancer. 

After a few moments the coach shouts, “alright we’re going to do a scrimmage now. Harry and Zayn, you’re team captains. Choose your team members.”

Harry, with Zayn in tow, walks up the where the coach is standing and turns to face the team.

“You wanna pick first?” he asks.

“Sure,” Zayn responds in his low, gravelly voice. “Uhh, Shawn.”

The boy—Shawn—walks over to him and they both turn to look at Harry, who’s supposed to pick now. Louis feels his heart sink. He knows he’ll be chosen last. Not only has he never played soccer before, but he’s also out of shape and none of the players even know who he is or what he’s doing at practice.

But then, to Louis' surprise, Harry calls out his name. Score? He goes over and stands beside him, trying to look like he knows what the heck is going on. Harry throws an arm over his shoulder and whispers, “don’t worry, I won’t make you do anything,” in his ear. 

Zayn calls out, “Avery!” The broad-shouldered boy to whom the name belongs muscles his way through the crowd of soccer players before standing next to Zayn. It goes on like this, Zayn and Harry taking turns choosing players for their team. Harry doesn’t retract his arm from Louis' shoulders, not that Louis is complaining.

Then, when the teams have been picked and there’s nobody left standing, the coach blows his whistle and sends Zayn’s team to the other side of the field.

“Alright!” Harry claps, as upbeat as ever. He begins passing out pinneys among the team. Louis grabs an ugly green one and pulls it on. It smells like four generations of athletes had worn it before trying, and failing, to wash it. He shudders. Nearly the entire rest of the team has on red pinneys, except for a few people who have the color blue on. Harry, Louis is pleased to notice, is the only other boy wearing a green pinney. 

With a quick pep talk from Harry and a few high fives from the soccer team, the game begins. 

*

It only takes 10 minutes for Harry’s team to be up by two points and Louis has already learned two new things.

One, Harry is somehow impossibly hotter when he runs.

And two, Louis really, really, sucks at soccer.

He’s somehow already managed to narrowly miss taking a ball to the nuts and had had to duck to avoid an accidental headshot that had started out as a pass. Harry, within the first two minutes of the game, had immediately picked up on his lack of skills and instructed him to stand by the goal as an extra defense. Extra defence meaning standing at the back of the field and doing absolutely nothing. Which, as it turns out, is a job that suits Louis perfectly, and he went on to spend the entire game watching Harry from the back of the field while barely moving five meters total. Which, for someone as incredibly unfit as Louis, was amazing.

*

The game ends suddenly then with a sharp whistle from the coach, signalling the team to gather around him. After a brief information session about upcoming games and tournaments, the coach blows his whistle again and lets the team go to the locker rooms. Louis fills with relief for about .2 seconds before he suddenly realises it’s time for the team to shower.

“Hey!” Harry walks over. “How’d you like soccer?”

“It was okay,” he shrugs. “Too much strenuous exercise for my liking though.”

Harry laughs. “You serious? That was nothing!” 

“I’m not sporty, remember?”

“Yeah, now more than ever.”

“Uncalled for,” Louis grumbles.

Harry just grins at him. “As much as I would love to stay and chat,” he says, “I’m really sweaty so I’m gonna go shower.”

Oh, shit. The shower situation. How did he already forget? The walk into the changing room and Harry grabs a towel and shampoo from the depths of his soccer bag. Reminding himself of what might happen if he showers with Harry, Louis comes to a sudden decision.

“I’m not going to shower here,” he blurts. “At least not with the team.”

“Why not?” Harry asks. “Are you self-conscious?” 

Uh. “Yes,” he whispers. To be fair, that’s not a complete lie. He knows that the soccer players have better bodies than him. They’re all muscular and tall. He’s pretty much the exact opposite. But he knows that doesn’t really matter and he’d totally shower with the team if it wasn’t for the fact that his own dick could potentially out him. If you’re hiding a crush, it’s common sense to avoid showering with them. Especially in his case, because he isn't out of the closet yet and getting a boner standing naked in front of the entire soccer team is one of the most awkward ways to do it.

“Don’t say that.” Harry turns to him and grabs one of his hands. “There is no reason for you to be self-conscious. You're-” he stops suddenly.

“Yes?” Louis prompts.

“Nothing,” Harry says quietly, quickly letting go of him and scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I'm- will you wait for me outside?”

“Okay,” he says, thankful for the out. He grabs his bag, somewhat creepily watching Harry’s retreating back in his peripheral vision, before leaving the locker rooms and stopping right outside. He parks ass on the bench that’s about a foot away from the door and turns his phone on to text Eleanor, tapping his thumb absentmindedly on the wood of the bench as he waits for skype to load. Then finally it does, and he opens his chat with her.

_Hey!_

_soccer practice went okay, nothing awkward happened and I managed to get myself out of the shower situation…_

_Excited to see you in a few days!!_

_Just gotta get through this sleepover_

_I’m a mess_

_:)_

Eleanor’s probably busy so he puts his phone in his backpack and waits in silence. After that it’s only a few minutes before the first couple players come out of the shower. They drop their bags and start talking. Judging by their voices, they’re probably eleventh graders. Suddenly Louis perks up when he hears one of them mention him.

“What’s the deal with Harry and the new kid? They dating?” _I fucking wish_.

The one with the lower voice scoffs and replies, “you mean Louis? Come on, man. We go to school with these people. Learn their names.”

“Fine. Are Harry and _Louis_ dating?” _Why on earth would he think that? Does he think we would make a cute couple? Because I sure do._

“Bro, I dunno. I think he’s dating Eleanor.”

_Gross._

“Who the fuck is Eleanor?”

Lower voice guy groans in a way that means _you’re so dumb how are you still alive_ and says, “do you even know anybody in this entire school? I mean, what’s my name?”

“Uh, Jeff?”

“It’s Mark, man. Mark.” _Ooo, awkward._

“Yeah I know. I was joking. But seriously, is Harry with Louis?”

“Already said I don’t know. Ask him yourself if you care so much.”

“Maybe I might.” _Yes, please do. I want to see how he’d react to that._

*

Harry is one of the last ones to come out, hair still dripping wet as he leaves the lockers. The guys who thought they were dating have long since left, sadly, so Louis will never get to see how Harry would’ve reacted to being asked if they were together. Harry marches over and drops his bag on the unoccupied half of the bench. “Ready for the night of your life?” He asks, running his fingers through his tangled mop of hair.

Louis casts an apprehensive glance in his direction. “I am if you keep your wet hair away from me.”

Harry grins devilishly and, without even a moment's hesitation, flicks his head in Louis' direction, showering him in droplets of water.

“You dick!” He cries, wiping the water off his face. “You’ve made me wet!”

Harry gives him a suggestive look. “Damn. Doesn’t take a lot to get you going.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You know what I meant.”

Harry just grins and pulls his arm to get him standing. “C’mon, let’s go to my house. Oh and by the way I accidentally came by bike this morning so we’ll have to take it with us. Do you wanna sit on the back while I ride? It’ll be much quicker.”

“You must be out of your mind if you think I’m gonna-”

“Relax! It’ll be fun!”

To be fair, if he sits on the back of Harry’s bike he’ll have every reason to hold onto him. And he can complain about his ass hurting when they reach the house to get Harry to bring him pillows and shit. Yeah, now that he’s thinking about it, the bike idea is starting to look real appealing. “Fuck, okay. Let’s do it.” 

“Awesome.” Harry smiles at him and takes his backpack from him. “Let’s ‘a go!”

Then suddenly Louis finds himself perched precariously on the metal bars on the back of Harry’s bike, holding on for dear life as Harry tears recklessly down the evening streets. He is almost certain Harry’s the worst biker he’s ever met.

It takes a few minutes, but as Louis slowly starts getting adjusted to the metal seat he quickly realises that sitting on the back of a bike isn’t the worst thing in the world. He’s actually quite enjoying it. He’s holding on to Harry’s waist and has a perfect view of his-

His jacket.

Yes.

The bars he’s sitting on will surely leave awkward bruises on his thighs in the morning, but he can’t bring himself to care. So he wraps his arms a little tighter around Harry and waits for the ride to end.

*

When they reach the house, Louis' left buttocks has pins and needles and he’s sure the other one is about to fall of. It was worth it though, he thinks as he steps off the back of the bike, because it gave him the golden opportunity to practically latch himself on to Harry without him being able to complain. He grabs the soccer bag hanging from the handlebars of the bike and and walks up to the front door which Harry is currently unlocking.

When the door finally clicks open, they step into the foyer and are met with an eery quiet as they look down the hallway in front of them. There is no noise giving hint to the presence of Harry’s sister, whom he had constantly complained about in the early days of their friendship. _Where is everybody?_

“My sister had exams all week, she’s definitely already asleep. And my parents are having dinner with their friends. The Wilsons, I think,” Harry calls out into the silence, almost as if reading his mind.

Oh wait. Right.

“What’s your sisters name again?” Louis asks, in a pretence of not really caring but secretly desperate to know more about his crush’s private life. But like, in the least creepy way possible.

“Gemma,” Harry answers after a moment. Then, “do you want any food or anything?”

Louis shakes his head. “I’ll just have a glass of water, thanks.” Harry leaves for the kitchen, leaving him to walk aimlessly around the hallway. His eyes find the picture of Harry with ice cream around his mouth that he had seen the last time he was here. Smiling to himself, he joins Harry in the kitchen and happily accepts the glass of water he’s offered.

“So,” he says, taking a sip. “Do we have any plans tonight?”

Harry thinks for a moment, leaning back against the kitchen counter and looking up at the ceiling. Okay, that’s unnecessarily attractive. “I just figured we could watch a movie and chill. Nothing serious.”

“Okay,” Louis replies simply. He places the now empty glass on the counter close to the sink and goes to the front door to grab his sleepover bag he’d previously dropped along with Harry’s soccer bag. Upon returning to the kitchen he finds the other messing around on his phone, scrolling through instagram and liking random posts. 

“You wanna relocate to the living room now?” He says, trying to get Harry’s attention.

“Huh?”

“I said do you want to go to the living room,” he repeats, louder.

“Wha- Oh, sure.” Harry quickly pours himself a glass of water and follows him out of the room. “So,” he continues, once they’re both sitting on the couch. “What do you want to watch?”

“Dunno, let’s check what there is on Netflix.”

“Okay,” Harry replies. He picks up the remote and turns on the TV. “Let’s see... “

*

When the movie ends, (they ended up watching Naked), Harry sighs happily and turns the screen off. “So, now what?”

“Dunno,” Louis replies. “Don’t really feel like watching another movie just yet.”

“Agreed.”

There is a beat of silence before both boys simultaneously pull out their phones and ignore the other. Well, at least Harry is ignoring Louis. Louis, on the other hand, is using his time while Harry is distracted to stare at him.

Subtly. 

Very subtly.

“Why are you staring at me?” Harry asks suddenly, head snapping up to throw an accusatory look at Louis.

Okay, not so subtly after all.

“What? I wasn’t staring at you! I was, ahh-” he stutters, desperately trying to think of a way out of the situation. “I, uh- I just thought we could maybe go up to your- uh, your room?” Nice save, Louis.

Harry narrows his eyes. “...Okay? I guess?”

He wants to pull his hair out.

*

Once in his room, Harry loudly proclaims that he has to go to the toilet and promptly shuts the adjoining door on Louis.

“Have fun!” He calls after him.

“Shut up.”

Louis chuckles and pulls his phone out for the second time that afternoon and to text Niall, who’s probably in church right now pretending to care about two people he’s never even met exchanging vows.

_What’s up?_

Niall writes back immediately.

_just chilling_

_wedding ended an hour ago_

_afterparty starts in a bit_

_wbu?_

_I’m in Harry’s room_

_I’m spending the night!!_

_seriously??_

_thats awesome!_

_wait._

_send proof_

_Why would I lie_

_proof or it didn’t happen_

Rolling his eyes, Louis quickly takes a photo from where he’s sitting on a beanbag in the far corner of the room. 

_There. That proof enough?_

_okay okay I believe you now_

_wait but what’s HT_

_How do you know about that?_

Louis' confused. He’s never told Niall about HT, how does he know? Wait. Fuck. Can Niall read his mind too now? That wouldn’t be ideal.

_there’s a bunch of papers with those initials on the floor_

_just wondering_

_why’s Harry so obsessed with HT_

_Oh._

_That’s Harry’s crush._

_Her initials_

_Any idea who it could be?_

_I have a thought but idk_

_is Harry bi?_

_What._

_No._

_I mean, maybe._

_Wait shut up don’t get my hopes up._

_He’s straight._

_I think I know who it is_

_Who??_

Louis tries to sit up in shock but forgets he’s in a beanbag. He ends up spasming like a fish out of water before falling awkwardly backwards. Thank god Harry isn’t in the room. That was not sexy.

Niall sends two laugh-emojis, almost as if to taunt him. 

_its kinda obvious if you think about it_

_never would’ve pinned Harry as the type to do something like that though_

_Something like what?_

_Who is it??_

_you’ve been chugging too much dumb bitch juice_

_its so obvious_

_Tell me!!!_

_bye bye_

Niall goes offline. In a state of crisis, Louis spams him with texts like like, ‘fuck, come back!!’ and, ‘please tell me! Please!!’ but it’s to no avail.

Harry walks back into the room then, perfect timing, leaving Louis with no time to wipe the panicked look off his face. “What’s wrong?” he asks immediately upon seeing his expression. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Louis blinks twice. “Oh, yeah. I’m good.”

Harry nods in acknowledgment, casting a glance at the clock on the watch which reads a few minutes after eleven. “It’s getting late, don’t you usually go to sleep now?”

Louis nods, pleasantly surprised that Harry remembers such little details about him. With great effort and no small amount of frustration, he stands up from the beanbag chair he’d been lying on and scampers downstairs to grab his overnight bag and change into his pyjamas. 

Upon return he throws his bag to the floor and drops down beside it, rummaging through to find his change of clothes. There’s a sound of running water coming from the adjoining bathroom; Harry’s taking a shower. For absolutely no reason, seeing as he showered not even two hours ago, but maybe he forgot to wash his hair or something. Shaking his head, Louis digs deeper into his bag. For an an uncomfortably long minute he doesn’t find his pyjamas. The minute continues and soon he realises he’d forgotten practically everything but his toothbrush.

“Harry?”

“One moment!” comes the response. He waits quietly, tapping his feet to the beat of a song that’s been stuck in his head for hours, before Harry walks out.

And, wow.

His towel is hanging dangerously low on his hips, water droplets still clinging to his skin as he runs a hand through his hair, shaking some of the water from it. Louis fixates his gaze on Harry’s eyes, successfully ignoring the distraction that are Harry’s abs five feet from his face. “I-uhh. I forgot my pyjamas,” he swallows thickly.

Harry doesn’t say anything, but rather walks over to his closet and tosses one of his shirts over to Louis before pulling one on himself. 

After getting over the initial shock of being offered one of his crush’s T-shirts to sleep in, Louis manages to choke out a weak, “I’m not going to wear one of your shirts to bed, man”

“Why not?” Harry asks. “They don’t smell that bad,” he adds. He pulls a shirt out of the closet and takes a whiff of it before visibly recoiling.

“It’s not that,” Louis says. “You’re just much taller than me. Your shirts are too big for me.”

“So what if it’s a little big? Big shirts always look cuter!”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Not on me.”

Harry frowns. “You’re stupid. Just wear the shirt.”

So he does. It’s rather comfortable, he decides. But there’s still something missing. “Harry?” he asks tentatively. “I still don’t have any pants.”

“Oh, shoot.” Harry stops mid-frown to think for a moment. He steps over a pile of shirts on the floor and walks towards him. “I’m sure I have a smaller pair in the wa-ooohh!”

Louis' eyes widen as Harry trips over a pair of discarded soccer boots and comes barreling towards him. He reaches out instinctively to steady him, but Harry can't stop his momentum and fully smashes into him. 

He stumbles backward—his arms reaching out behind him to break the fall somehow—when his hands come in contact with the wall. Thank god. They fall against it, air rushing from Louis' lungs as Harry lands almost on top of him.

And Louis can’t think because suddenly the lower half of Harry’s body is pressing up against his, and his arms are propped up on either side of him and neither of them are saying anything, why haven’t they said anything? There’s a pregnant pause in the room, silence filled only by the sounds of Harry breathing heavily.

It’s Louis who breaks it.

“What are you doing?” He laughs nervously, squirming uncomfortably.

“Just making sure you don’t fall down," Harry replies, pressing himself almost closer.

"Oh." He looks quickly up before ducking his head and-big mistake. 

His fingers are hovering close to Harry, _almost_ touching his body, so close that if he just reaches out little further he’d be trailing his hands along the dips of his torso. He jerks his hands back suddenly because- when did he do that? He doesn’t remember reaching out. 

Harry’s breath is hot on his face and Louis almost wants to cry because he feels so exposed, there is an edge of something very _raw_ in his face and Harry only has to look at him a little closer and he would _know_.

So he keeps his head turned away but they still don’t say anything. And is he imagining things, or is Harry leaning in? He dares to look at him and, oh, his face is a lot closer than before. He opens his mouth to say something—anything—but only a hitching breath comes out.

And suddenly Harry’s face is so close he can feel his breath blowing over his lips. Their noses brush together and Louis quickly realises just how very _real_ this is, so he moves his hands forward to Harry’s body and brushes his fingers tentatively against the fabric of the towel before placing a gentle grip on his waist. 

Harry angles his chin downwards and leans in even further. His eyes are closed and Louis, not knowing what to do, quickly shuts his too. His heart is pounding out of his chest when their lips _finally_ brush together, a butterfly light touch connecting them, and he knows there is only the smallest fraction of space left between them—all he has to do is lean forward the tiniest bit more and—

Suddenly there’s a noise at the door and Louis snaps his head up to see Harry’s sister walk in without knocking. She takes one look at them and frowns. “Harry, you should really put some clothes on.”

Louis wants to scream because he’s convinced something was about to happen. Normally he’d just assume he’s getting his hopes up, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out they were about to kiss. He steals a glance at Harry and—oh, apparently they weren’t. His face is much too calm for a straight guy who nearly kissed his gay friend two seconds ago. Harry pushes himself away and takes a step back, making a light hearted remark about how he should really stop leaving his boots lying around, but Louis is barely listening. His mind is still reeling. 

What the _fuck_ just happened.

“I just came to tell you to go to bed but you look busy,” Gemma laughs. Louis stares at her like he’s never seen her before. Which, to be fair, he hasn’t. He can’t believe now of all times has to be the moment he meets his crushes sister. Right after they nearly _kissed_. Or whatever the fuck just happened.

“We’re going to bed soon,” Harry answers, walking to to door and shutting it in his sister’s face. He turns to Louis. “Shall we go to the laundry room?” Oh, right. That. “Or should I go alone.”

Okay, so they’re not going to acknowledge the almost-kiss. _Maybe because he wasn’t going to kiss you,_ Louis thinks. Shut up. “No, I’ll come with you.”

It’s awkward on the way downstairs. Louis decides not to bring up the near-kiss until Harry does, and Harry’s acting like he’s already forgotten everything that happened. Disappointed, Louis writes it off as a spur of the moment thing.

When they reach the laundry room Harry quickly opens the dryer and pulls out a pair soft soft-looking sweatpants before tossing them in Louis' direction. He fumbles with them for a moment before slinging them over his shoulder and turning to the door. Neither of them have spoken yet and he’s not about to break the silence. He barely makes it half a foot before he’s stopped by an arm on his shoulder, holding him back. Shit, is this where they acknowledge it?

Harry, his eyes fixed on the arch of the doorway, drops the hand holding him and says, “my dad hung mistletoe all throughout the house in hopes of catching my mom. I guess we got caught.” With an awkward chuckle he points to the ceiling above them.

Fuck. This is somehow worse. This cannot be happening. First the almost-kiss, now this? Louis casts a look up at the doorway and sure enough, there is a sprig of mistletoe hanging directly above the threshold to the room. “I’m not going to kiss you,” he deadpans, turning his direction back to the boy standing in front of him.

“It’s tradition,” Harry says, winking. “You don’t want to break traditions, do you?”

He groans. “How are you even okay with this? Most guys wouldn’t want me to kiss them.”

Harry frowns, confused. “Why not?”

“Well, because I’m gay. Most guys would assume I either already have a crush on them or I will if we get too close.”

Harry scoffs. “That’s a dumb way of thinking. I know you’ll never have a crush on me anyways, Louis, regardless of what your sexuality is.”

Oh, well. Ahh.

“Still,” he continues, “it’ll make things awkward between us, especially because I’m gay-”

He’s cut off by Harry pressing a light kiss to his cheek. “There,” he says. “Do you feel awkward?”

“Um… I guess not.” 

Harry smiles. “See? Right again.”

Louis resists the urge to touch the spot on his cheek where Harry’s mouth had just been moments earlier. Honestly, what the fuck? If he’d have known what an emotional rollercoaster sleeping over would be, he would have mentally prepared himself a bit more. 

*

When he comes out of the bathroom, which he’d disappeared into to change the moment they came back upstairs, he sees a mattress with a blanket that Harry had set up for him while he was changing. Exhausted, he falls onto it and mutes his phone before rolling onto his side. He’ll have to call Eleanor and Niall tomorrow to tell the about everything that happened. After a few moments alone in the room, Harry enters and climbs into bed with a heavy sigh. A second later the room light turns off.

“Goodnight,” he calls out into the darkness.

“Night,” comes the reply.

He snuggles into Harry’s clothes and drifts off pretty quickly, worn down by the soccer training earlier and everything that had happened since. His last coherent thought before he falls asleep is how the shirt he’s wearing smells like Harry’s cologne. It’s nice.


	9. Eleanor's arrival

_Ouch, fuck_ is Louis' first coherent thought when he wakes up the next morning, ass still slightly sore from the rough bike ride the night before. He reaches blindly for his phone, grabbing hold of it as soon as he feels the cold metal underneath his fingertips. After temporarily blinding himself with the sudden brightness from the screen, he opens youtube and begins watching random videos that show up on his recommended list, biding his time until Harry wakes up. 

Sunlight streams through the narrow gaps between the curtains as Louis lies huddled under his blanket, cocooned in a bubble of peace. Harry, still fast asleep, elicits soft snores every now and again, adding to the tranquility of the morning. The clock reads 9:36am, indicating that the two boys had gotten a little over nine hours of sleep total. Time passes slowly, with the occasional rustle of bedsheets as Louis tries to find a comfortable position to lie in.

Another half hour passes before Harry finally wakes up. “What time is it?” He asks groggily. His morning voice is decidedly sexy.

“Uhh, around 10:15,” Louis says, checking the clock for the second time that morning to find he’d been watching youtube for over half an hour. Harry rubs his eyes with the palm of his hand to adjust his eyes to the sudden brightness. Then he throws his blanket aside and stands up, somehow already completely awake. 

“Get up, let’s make breakfast!” 

“Ugh, I’m tired,” Louis complains. How can anyone be so awake in the morning?

“No, you’re just lazy.”

“Okay true, but you don’t have to say it like that!” he replies, disgruntled.

Harry laughs. “Come on slowpoke.” He begins to walk out of the room slowly, waiting to be followed.

Louis rolls his eyes and groans. “Fine.”

A bit later they both end up standing awkwardly in the kitchen, staring at the jumble of pots and pans cluttered throughout the room. There’s a small stack of dirty plates sitting in the sink, which Harry begins to sheepishly load into the dishwasher upon seeing Louis' grossed out expression.

They spend the next few minutes rummaging through the mess in the kitchen, trying to find something to make breakfast with. Time passes in peaceful silence until Harry breaks it.

“Louis, do you ever plan on coming out?” He asks suddenly.

Startled, Louis replies with, “um, yeah, I guess. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering. What would you come out as?”

He narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well you’ve said before that you like guys, but that could mean you’re bisexual, pansexual, het-”

Oh. “I’m gay,” he interrupts. “I’d come out as gay.”

“Okay,” Harry says slowly, thinking. “How did you know that you only like boys?”

Louis shrugs. “Same way you know you only like girls, I guess.”

Harry stays silent for a moment, seemingly on the verge of saying something. After a moment's pause he does, but it’s of no significance. He simply asks whether Louis would like eggs or pancakes for breakfast. 

“Pancakes,” he decides.

Harry nods and turns to grab a newly cleaned pan from the drying rack. “Oh, hey! We can make milkshakes!” He adds, bouncing on the balls of his heels in excitement.

“You do that,” Louis jokes.

“No, I’m making pancakes,” Harry shakes his head. “You gotta.” He whips a blender out from behind his back and hands it to him. “Ice cream’s in the freezer.”

“Wha- What?” Louis says, utterly, for lack of a better word, flabbergasted. “Where the fuck did that blender come from?”

Harry just shrugs. “Always gotta have a blender on hand. You know, for times like these.”

He rolls his eyes. “Knowing you, you might not even be joking right now.” He watches as Harry opens the freezer, tossing a carton of ice cream at him. Louis catches it as best he can, fumbling it for a fraction of a second before setting it on the countertop along with the blender. He spots a rather large spoon and grabs it, trusting that it’ll be clean. In all honesty, Louis has absolutely no skills in the kitchen, and so his hopes aren’t high for the milkshakes he’s about to make.

He puts a couple scoops of ice cream in the blender, forgetting to count how many, before pouring an unmeasured amount of milk on top. Closing the lid, he puts the blender on the first setting and watches as the ice cream mixture begins to froth. After a good minute he hesitantly pulls off the lid and reaches for the giant spoon.

“Hey, Harry? Can you come and try the milkshake?”

“Sure.” Harry walks over and takes the spoon from him before dipping it in the milkshake. After tasting it he hesitates for a second, facial expression giving no indication as to what he was thinking.

“Well?” Louis asks impatiently. “What do you think?”

Harry makes a contemplative face, smacking his lips a few times for good measure. “Erm, well…”

“Gosh, spit it out!”

“It’s kind of gross,” he admits, shaking his head a bit. “I don’t know how you could fuck up putting ice cream in a blender, but somehow you did.” He snorts. “How is it too watery and too thick at the same time?”

Louis mock gasps, batting Harry’s arm. “How rude!” He pauses, sheepish. “I kinda figured it’d be gross, though.”

“Eh,” Harry shrugs. “You can’t be good at everything. Tell you what, why don’t you leave the cooking to me? You can sit on the counter stool or whatever.”

Satisfied with the solution Louis sets himself down on one of the counter stools and looks up just in time to see Harry spill baking soda on himself. He tries and fails to cover up a chuckle at the sight of him then furiously batting the powder off his shirt, an extremely focused expression on his face.  


Harry glares at him. “What’s so funny?”  
  
Louis snorts. “You look cute when you're all concentrated. Your nose even scrunches up and everything.”  
  
Harry looks scandalised. “Shut up,” he mutters, rolling his eyes before turning back to the pancakes.

Louis smiles fondly at him, maybe a little too fondly because he has to physically shake himself out of his trance to look down at his phone when several notifications light up the screen.

It’s from Eleanor, what else is new.

_hey!_

_my flight was cancelled_

_we booked a new one for today_

_so uhh guess I’ll see you later today!!_

_my dad texted your mom the details_

_awesome!!_

_I’m at Harry’s right now, I’ll leave soon to tidy up my room before you get here_

_can’t wait to see you :))_

_yayy clean room_

_boarding now_

_i’ll text when i land_

Eleanor goes offline right after, leaving Louis to tell Harry the change in plans. “Hey, turns out Eleanor’s arriving later today instead of Monday. Is it alright if I leave after lunch?”

“Yeah, of course. You need to try these pancakes before you leave though.”

“How could I not.”

*

Five hours have since passed and Louis is now sitting in the middle of his bedroom, eyeing the mess in disdain. Harry's pancakes were rather good, although he didn’t add enough flour so they tasted a little wrong. But they were Harry's pancakes nonetheless, so Louis swallowed every last bite.

After breakfast they’d messed around on Harry’s x-box for a couple hours before Louis had to pack his bag and leave. It sucked that he had to leave so early, especially since school wouldn’t start for another three weeks and the chances of Harry asking him to hang out over the holidays were small.

But that’s a crisis for another time. Presently, Louis has a different problem. He had stupidly told Eleanor he’d try to clean his room, forgetting how messy it actually was. With a sigh, he hefts his sleepover bag onto his shoulder and drops it on his bed, figuring he should get the easy stuff out of the way first.

He unzips the duffel bag and pulls out his headphones and toothbrush, setting them aside before delving further and-

Fuck.

He pulls out a pair of soft sweatpants and a large shirt with a groan. He fucking stole Harry's pyjamas. Whatever. He’ll just give them back at some point. He picks up his phone briefly to text Harry and tell him before putting the clothes on his pillow, because, well. As long as he has them, he may as well wear them. What? It's not like he’s going to give them back unwashed.

Anyways. 

His phone lights up with a text from Eleanor, which he reads while rummaging further into his bag and pulling out his hairbrush.

_I've landed! Going through security now, can you pick me up in an hour?_

Louis grins, excited to be seeing his best friend again after so many weeks apart (nearly 2, to be exact). To be fair, she had only moved a couple weeks before christmas break started, but those weeks had been the first time in Louis' life without Eleanor by his side so, needless to say, he misses the fuck out of his best friend.

“Mom!” he shouts. “Can we go pick Eleanor up?!”

“Sure, honey!” comes the reply. “Is your room clean?”

“uhh,” Louis hesitates. “Yeah it is!!” 

Whatever, Eleanor is used to the mess.

“Okay then let's go!” his mom calls out.

Louis goes downstairs and pulls on his jacket as his mom makes the finishing touches on the front hallway. He laughs as she picks up a cat decoration and wipes away the dust underneath.

“Christ mom,” he says. “She isn’t going to check under our cat decorations.”

His mom bats his arm. “She’s our guest and that's what you do for your guests. It’s proper etiquette.”

Louis rolls his eyes, chuckling. “Sure mom.” He then turns and leaves the house, followed shortly after by his mom, who chooses to ignore the comment. They pile the car and she turns the ignition on before driving towards to airport to pick Eleanor up. 

The ride lasts a comfortable 20 minutes before they’re pulling up into the airport parking lot. Louis' mom turns off the engine as he excitedly hops out of the car. “Come on!!” he calls, hopping from one foot to another in anticipation.

“Yeah, yeah,” his mom replies curtly, juggling her keys and purse as she tries to close the car door. “Give me a moment.” 

Louis' phone lights up with a text as he waits for his mom to get her shit together.

_through security_

_waiting by the front entrance_

Louis lets out a loud squeal, which he quickly covers up with a loud cough because he is very manly, thank you very much. Grabbing his mom's arm, he begins to pull her towards the parking lot exit, stopping only briefly to crane his head around the rear of the car and make sure both doors had been properly closed. The afternoon would surely be ruined if they managed to get their car stolen.

Thankfully both doors have been properly shut, so Louis tightens his grip around his mother and they make their way to the airport entrance. His mom eventually peels his fingers off her with grumbles of contempt, as he had apparently been cutting off her bloodstream. He apologizes quickly before setting his gaze back towards the airport, trying to find Eleanor. 

He spots what he thinks is a teenage girl with light brown hair loitering by the trash cans and almost runs towards her, but then she turns around and Louis realizes that he’d just been about to run up to a middle aged man with suspiciously well groomed hair. Shaking it off, he swivels his head around, trying to catch a glimpse of his best friend. 

He feels a rush of disappointment when he doesn't see her and is on the verge of calling out her name when, out of nowhere, a small brown haired girl vaults herself at him and clings on, shaking with excitement. Never a man for emotions, Louis pats her head awkwardly until she lets go and allows him to look at her properly. 

“I’ve missed you so much!! You’ve gotten shorter!! How’s school?? Oh my god, we have so much to catch up on!! Two weeks is a long time to be apart…” Eleanor gasps, her words tumbling over each other as she hops from one foot to another. “I kind of have to pee,” she adds afterwards, subtly suggesting they get a move on home.

“We’ll get you to a bathroom right away princess,” Louis says politely, quoting an old inside joke of theirs from when they were kids. 

“Thank you, kind sir,” she replies with the same courteous tone. She subtly wipes her eyes -had she been crying?- before turning to Louis' mom. “And how have you been, Ms Tomlinson? Can’t imagine Louis' been much help around the house.”

His mom chuckles. “Nope, can’t say he has. But then again, was he ever?”

“True, true,” Eleanor drawls, grabbing hold of her suitcase from where it lay behind Louis.

“Hey!” he protests, indignant. “I clean my room! Mostly…”

“No you don’t,” his mom says in unison with Eleanor.

“I do to!” he protests.

“Nope,” his mom confirms.

Realising there’s no point in arguing, Louis rolls his eyes and takes Eleanor’s suitcase from her and slowly begins walking to the car, the others soon falling into step beside him.

“So,” Eleanor continues, “how’s life been without me these past weeks? You need to tell me everything! Oh, and I've got to hear more about this Niall guy! What’s he like? Is he cute? Can I meet him?”

Feeling overloaded with questions Louis interrupts her mid rant. “Niall is cool. We can FaceTime him later today, if you want?”

“I’d love that!” She claps her hands together excitedly. “Oooh and you need to tell me more about Harry!! You've been getting closer recently-” she drops her voice to a whisper- “do you think you might date soon?”

“Shhh!!” Louis panics. “What if my mom hears you??” He casts a fearful glance at the woman in question, who has thankfully chosen this exact moment to search her purse for the car keys and is otherwise unaware. He hasn't come out to his mom yet, partially because he doesn't know what her reaction will be and partially because he just can't find the right moment to. He knows she won't have any negative reaction to it, but there's still an unnecessary fear keeping him tethered, an impossible thought that maybe, just maybe, it'll change things between them.

“Dude,” Eleanor deadpans, interrupting his anxiety-induced thought process with her monotone words of wisdom. “You're really fucking stupid.”

“What?” Well that wasn't quite what he was expecting. “Rude.”

“I mean, when has your mom ever been homophobic?” she continues. “And besides, she already uses gender neutral pronouns when talking about your future relationships.”

Well that’s… True. 

“I think you should come out to her. If you do it while I’m here, I'll sit with you as you say it.”

“Yeah, maybe.” They let the conversation die off as they reach the car and are once more in earshot of Louis' mom. Eleanor takes her suitcase from Louis and throws it into the trunk before joining him in the back seat, resuming their conversation from way earlier. 

“So, when do I get to meet this lovely Niall guy?”

“He’s, uhh. He's in Italy right now, visiting family.”

“Oh that's a shame,” Eleanor pouts. “How did you guys become friends anyways?”

Louis thinks for a moment. “We were partnered up for a history project. He's really nice. I don’t know him all too well but I think we could be close. We hit it off real quick. He also speaks Italian, did I mention?” 

“Yeah I think you have. But ooh, speaking of Italian, have I mentioned my newfound vocabulary?”

“Um, what?”

“Yeah! There’s this Italian guy in my class who taught me how to say good day!!”

Louis smiles. “Well? Let’s hear it then!”

“Vaffanculo!” Eleanor proclaims proudly.

His mom suppresses a laugh as Louis stares at her. “That's not. Um. Well- hmm. Uhh.”

“What, did I say it wrong?” Eleanor questions.

“No, actually. You just said, uh. Fuck you.”

Eleanor looks taken aback. “Sorry?”

“Oh, no no no. That's what you just said! Vaffanculo means fuck you, not good day. Um, how many people have you said this to?”

She frowns. “Nobody, thank god. I wanted to run the pronunciation by you first.”

“Good you did.” There is a beat of silence which Louis' mom tries to cover up by turning on the radio. “What do you want to do when we get home?” He asks a few moments later, over the sounds of Beyoncé.

“Dunno,” Eleanor shrugs, ever the intelligent one. “Figured we could just talk. Maybe catch up over a tub of ice cream from the local place?”

“Mmm, can’t say no to that.”

The ride continues on with peaceful conversation for the next ten minutes before they're pulling back into Louis' driveway.

“Oh my god!” Eleanor says suddenly, after they've both gotten out of the car and are making their way to the front door. “I haven't told you about my wisdom teeth removal!”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?” he asks cautiously.

“Oh my god yes,” she snorts. “I looked like a chipmunk for days! It was hilarious. I have some pictures if you want to see.” She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and fumbles with it for a moment before waving it in Louis' face. 

“Woah.” Louis is met with the sight of Eleanor, eyes bloodshot and rolling back into her head, with cheeks the size of oranges. 

“This was taken just after I woke up from the anaesthesia,” she explains. “My eyes went back to normal pretty quickly, but the swelling didn't go down for days.”

Louis laughs as he hands back the phone. “C’mon,” he says. “Let's bring your stuff upstairs and get you situated before we go for ice cream.”

“Okay!” she chirps. “Let’s invite Harry! I know you want to.” She winks.

“Fuck off.”


	10. Eleanor, Louis, Harry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said this was an edited version of my story mindreader? i didn't edit it completely. this chapter is the first chapter that's unedited. all chapters after this will be the exact same as the chapters in mindreader, i'm only posting them to have a complete work but they're the same.

Upstairs they set Eleanor’s shit down on Louis' bed before heading back downstairs again, promising themselves to take care of the blow up mattress upon their return.

“Bye mom! We’ll be at the ice cream place!” Louis calls out.

“Okay! Have fun pumpkin.”

Eleanor snickers. “Pumpkin.”

They’ve only been walking for a few minutes, chatting idly about Eleanor’s new school, when she stops in her tracks and grabs Louis' arm. When he turns to look at her, confused, she dramatically slaps a hand to her forehead. He stares at her. This is it, she’s gone insane. He thought he had more time until it happened…

“We forgot to invite Harry!”

“Oh.” Louis raises an eyebrow. “You were serious about that?”

“Um, duh? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I mean,” he shrugs. “We weren’t really friends with him when you lived here. I don’t think he even knows who you are?”

“Nonsense,” she replies. “Everybody knows who I am.”

Louis coughs.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Mhm. Can you invite him now?” she gives him a look. “Unless you’re too chicken to.”

“Fuck off I’m doing it already.” He pulls his phone out of his coat pocket but is stopped by Eleanor placing her hand on his arm. “What? I’m actually doing it and you’re stopping me?”

“No, I just.” She bites her lip. “I was wondering- Can you do the thinking thing? Like, invite him via your mind? I really want to see it in person.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “It’s not like you’re gonna see much anyways.” However he complies upon seeing the pleading look on Eleanor’s face.

‘ _Harry?’_ he thinks. Honestly, he hasn’t conversed telepathically with Harry for so long, for all he knows their connection might not exist anymore.

‘ _Louis?’_ comes the response. ‘ _Something wrong?’_ Harry sounds tired. Maybe his mind is a bit sluggish today.

Eleanor prods Louis. “What’s happening?”

“Stop talking!”

‘ _Sorry?’_ Harry says, sounding unsure of himself.

_‘No, not you,’_ Louis reassures. ‘ _I’m with Eleanor right now and she won’t shut up.’_ He looks down at his shoes and notices a leaf stuck to the underside of the left one. Reaching down to pluck it off, he continues. ‘ _We were wondering if you’d like to join us for ice cream? Down at the place we went a couple weeks ago.’_

‘ _Uhh, I’d love to. But who’s Eleanor again?’_

Louis grins, his point proven. ‘ _She’s my best friend. She was at our school last year, back when you didn’t know who I was.’_

Harry sighs. ‘ _Joking, joking. I know full well who Eleanor is. Can I meet you in twenty minutes?’_

Louis grins. ‘ _See you there!’_ He lets the leaf he’d just plucked off his shoe fall from his hand, watching it flutter to the ground. Suddenly he feels a sharp pain in his lower leg, courtesy of a well-placed kick from Eleanor.

“Well?” she says, impatient. “I just stared at you for a full minute. Something good better have come from this.”

Louis grins. “He’ll meet us in twenty minutes. Let’s go.”

Later, after ordering bagels for them both, they find a table that sits four and sit, both waiting excitedly. Louis' excited to see Harry again, even though he just saw him in the morning, and Eleanor’s just really hungry and wants some bagels.

The food arrives before Harry does, and they’re both tucking in to their meal as he walks in, setting his coat on the chair across from them and nodding in greeting. “What’s up? Hey Louis.”

They both smile at him. Eleanor perks up. “Maybe you should order your food before we talk,” she suggests.

“Good idea.” He walks up to the counter, leaving them to their devices.

Eleanor turns to Louis. “Harry got hot since last year,” she remarks, raising an eyebrow. “That soccer training is doing him well.”

Louis gives her a stink-eye. “Don’t thirst after my man,” he jokes.

Eleanor smirks, raising her arms in defeat. “I’m just saying! I can tell why you want to fuck him.”

“Eugh, gross.” Louis gags. “Never.”

Eleanor winks. “Just give it a few years.”

He flips her off as Harry returns to the table, sandwich in hand. He sets it down before sitting and starting a conversation with Eleanor, clearly trying to get to know her better.

Louis leans back in his chair and watches as his two friends exchange pointless small talk. He hopes they can become friends someday, although it’s unlikely due to Eleanor living in a different country. The afternoon is going quite well until, fifteen minutes into their rendezvous, Eleanor suddenly clutches her cheek in pain.

“What is it?” he questions, worried.

“It’s- fuck. My mouth is bleeding again.”

Harry looks a little grossed out. “Again?”

“She just got her wisdom teeth removed,” Louis explains, before turning his attention back to his best friend. “Do you need anything?” he asks.

Eleanor shakes her head. “Just need to go to the bathroom.” She subtly winks at him and- oh. She’s pretending to go to the bathroom so Louis and Harry can have some time alone.

“You little shit,” Louis says under his breath, grateful nonetheless. 

Eleanor pushes her chair back, covering her mouth with her left hand as she uses the other to grab a napkin off the table. “I’ll be right back,” she coughs convincingly. Louis watches her leave.

Once she’s gone he turns back to Harry, who is already staring at him. “Does she do that a lot?” he asks.

“Nah,” Louis says. Suddenly a thought crosses his mind. “What did you mean before when you said you know ‘full well’ who Eleanor is?” 

“What?”

“Before,” Louis prompts. “When we were talking. Or, well, thinking.”

“Oh, um. I dunno. Why? What do you mean?” Harry replies, confused. He bites down into his sandwich.

“It’s just, knowing ‘full well’ who someone is usually means you don’t like them.”

“Oh, right.” He languidly wipes a spot of grease off his hands before saying, “It really wasn’t anything personal. I just held a grudge.”

Louis' confused. “About what? We didn’t know each other last year.”

“Well,” he sets down his burger. “In truth, I was jealous.”

Louis feels his throat constrict. “What for?”

“Well,” Harry pauses for effect. “Last year I had this monster crush on you, I was so jealous of her for being best friends with you.”

“You’re joking,” Louis deadpans.

“Don’t worry,” Harry says. “I’m almost over you.” He sighs longingly. 

Louis stares at him. “Idiot.”

“Rude!” Harry breaks his facade, cracking a smile. “Here I am trying to make a joke and you call me an idiot!”

“Did you honestly think I would believe you?”

Harry frowns. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“We’ve established this, Harry. Someone like you would never have a crush on someone like me.” Louis sighs.

Harry looks aggravated. And a little…. sad? It’s hard to decipher his emotions. “Don’t be so sure of that,” he jokes. But there’s something in his voice that makes Louis wonder.

He’s about to respond when Eleanor walks back in and reclaims her seat next to him. Feeling slightly intruded upon, he changes the subject. “So why did you actually hold a grudge against Eleanor?” he asks again, hoping for a real answer this time.

Eleanor immediately starts snickering. Harry gives her a glance before saying, “honestly it’s kind of childish.”

“In what way?”

“In the sense of, like, she sat on my sandwich once.”

“You’re fucking with me.” Louis looks at them both individually, hoping he’s being messed with again. “You’re holding a grudge over a sandwich?”

“It was a good sandwich!” Harry says indignantly. “Cost me a fortune. And she just sat on it!”

Eleanor cackles. “It was a dare.”

“Who the fuck would dare you to sit on my sandwich?” Harry cries. “Louis, do you know anything about this??”

“Yeah, actually,” he groans. “I was the one who dared her.”

“You little shit.” Harry grins. “Trust you to do something like that. But honestly, why?”

Louis thinks. In truth, he had done it in hopes that Eleanor, the charismatic little shit she is, would strike a conversation with Harry and eventually introduce him to Louis. It had obviously not gone according to plan. He continues thinking. “I guess it was just the first thing that came to mind,” he lies.

“Rude one you are,” Harry jokes. “You owe me a sandwich now.”

A thought crosses Louis' mind. “Speaking of what I owe you, I have to give you back your clothes.”

Harry furrows his eyebrows. “My what?”

“”Your pyjamas,” Louis corrects. “I accidentally took them home with me.”

“Oh, right.” Harry waves a hand nonchalantly. “You can keep them. The pants are too small for me anyways.”

Louis feels himself smile involuntarily. “Really?” he asks. “And the shirt?”

Harry shrugs. “I don’t really need that. You can give it back if you want to, though.”

“Nah, I’ll keep it,” Louis says, a little too quickly. Eleanor gives him a pointed look. “What?” he says, “It’s comfortable.”

“Right.”

“Uh, guys,” Harry says, glancing down at his phone. “I gotta go.”

“Aw, so soon?” Eleanor asks.

“Yeah, sorry. We have relatives coming over, so me and my sister have to clean the house.” He pulls a face.

“We should make our way home too,” Louis says to Eleanor. Then, turning to Harry, “maybe we can hang out again over the break?”

Harry grins. “Definitely.”

And with that they’re packing up, pulling on their coats and bringing their dirty plates to the counter. When they’ve left the building Harry turns to them, briefly hugging Eleanor before saying to Louis, “we’ll see each other soon!”

Louis smiles. “Maybe we can hang out as the three of us before Eleanor leaves.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Harry drawls absentmindedly. “I’m still butt hurt about the sandwich though.”

Eleanor scoffs, standing by as Louis and Harry hug. The hug lasts a moment longer than necessary, making her scoff and turn away, before they pull apart and Harry walks off. Once he’s out of earshot she turns to Louis. “That was surprisingly fun!”

“Uh, yeah?” Louis says. “Did you think it’d be anything else?”

“Well, I mean, you and Harry have only been friends for what? Two weeks?”

“True. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s nothing, really,” she assures. “I just thought it might be awkward because you don’t know each other that well yet.”

Louis frowns. “Uh, okay?” He’s not getting the point of this observation.

“Well,” Eleanor continues, “you have a surprising amount of chemistry! Not even romantic, but more on a friendship level. Like you two were destined to be friends.”

“Great,” Louis says. “I’m destined to stay in the friend-zone forever.”

Eleanor bats his arm. “You’d make a cute couple too! Maybe it you write him an anonymous valentine…”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Aw, come one,” she pleads, pulling at his jacket sleeve. “I’ll help you write it!”

“Nope.” Louis releases himself from her grip before slowly walking away. “Come on! We still have to make your bed!”

“You suck!” Eleanor calls out after him, before giving in and running to catch up.

They enter the house not ten minutes later, kicking their boots off and leaving their coats draped over the couch before going upstairs. They enter Louis' room where they find, to their surprise, that his mom had already made Eleanor’s bed and taken the laundry down for a washing. “Oh sweet mercy!” Eleanor cries, throwing herself down on the bed. “I love your mom so much!” 

Louis chuckles. “Don’t let her hear you saying that.” He walks over and joins her on the mattress, pulling off his socks and tossing them carelessly behind him.

“Louis,” Eleanor says, disappointed. “Your mom just collected your laundry for you. Have the decency to put your shit in the hamper.” She pushes herself off the bed and goes to pick up his socks, holding her nose shut as she does.

He shrugs. “If you want to clean my dirty clothes, have at it.”

“Not how I imagined my vacation going,” she grumbles. However, like the neat freak she is, she takes a moment to drop Louis' socks in the hamper before coming back to join him on the bed.

“Now what?” he says, stretching out and lying down on his stomach.

“Dunno. Let’s talk.” Eleanor stands up and goes over to Louis' bed, dropping down and spreading out. “What’s been going on in your life as of late? Besides an overwhelming love for Harry.”

Louis turns his head to look at her. “I don’t love him,” he clarifies.

“Oh?”

“Well, admittedly, I have an unconventionally large crush on him, but I don’t love him.” There is a pause. “Yet.”

Eleanor raises her eyebrows. “Yet?” she repeats. “Do you think you could though?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Louis shrugs. His cheek is smooshed into the mattress and he can feel himself start to drool a little, so he adjusts himself until he’s lying on his back. “Admittedly I don’t know much about him yet. But we’re starting to be friends and, I dunno. I had built this unrealistic ideal of what kind of person he is in those years where we weren’t friends and I guess I never knew for certain who he actually was.”

He falters before continuing. “I couldn’t fall in love with him before because I wouldn’t know who I’m falling in love with. But now, with us starting to be friends, I think I could. It’s a possibility. A dangerous possibility.”

Eleanor gapes at him. “Woah,” she whispers. “That was deep.”

“Yeah,” he grins. “Don’t know where the fuck that came from but I don’t think I’m ever going to say something that intelligent again.”

She laughs. “It would be unlike you.” 

“So,” Louis continues, off topic. “How’s your love life doing?”

“Meh,” she turns to face him. “There was this guy I thought was gay but as it turns out he actually has a crush on me.”

“Of course,” Louis chuckles. Eleanor can’t go three days without somebody having a crush on her. “What’s his name?”

“Francis,” she says. “I was convinced he was dating his friend, some guy named Matthew, I think. Or Michael? I can’t remember.”

“Aha.”

“No, seriously. They were super affectionate and would cheek kiss all the time. I thought the cheek-kissing was their way of showing that they were dating,” she explains. “Turns out they’re both french. Cheek kissing is a thing in France, or so I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, it is. Remember Jeanne?” he asks. Jeanne was a french girl who had gone to school with them for a few years. “Whenever she was with her friends she would kiss them all before even talking to them.” He shudders. “I was glad to see her go.”

“What, because she’s french?”

“No,” Louis clarifies. “She sat in front of me in chemistry. Completely blocked my view of Harry.”

“Oh my god.” Eleanor cackles. “You’re such a creep.”

“Shh.” Louis smiles. “So what are you going to do about Francis?”

“Well, he asked me out. So I agreed to go for lunch with him and see where it goes. If it doesn’t work out we’ll just stay friends.”

“That’s nice. Where are you going for the lunch?”

“Oh, um,” Eleanor thinks for a moment. “A pizza place, down by his house. And then afterwards we’re going for ice cream.”

“What?” Louis' eyes widen. “I did the exact same thing with Harry not two weeks ago. That’s not really a date.”

Eleanor shrugs. “It is if someone says it is.”

“But it’s not so romantic.”

“Doesn’t have to be. We’re just getting to know each other.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They continue talking aimlessly for another hour until Louis' mom calls them down for dinner. Unbeknownst to them, she had spent the entire day labouring in the kitchen, and so it is with hours of work behind her that she proudly presents them with a homemade lasagna.

“Dig in,” she says, laying it in front of them. “I have a dinner with some coworkers to get to. Put the leftovers in the fridge when you’re done.”

Louis grunts in acknowledgement as Eleanor says, “of course, have fun!”

“Thank you, Eleanor,” his mom says, casting a pointed look to Louis. He doesn’t notice however, already busying himself with filling his plate. She leaves then, not before giving them both hugs and planting a sloppy kiss on Louis' cheek, which he wipes off the second she leaves the house.

“I love your mom,” Eleanor says, grabbing a plate from the cupboard and serving herself some lasagna.

“I know,” Louis says through a mouthful of food. “You say that every time she does anything remotely convenient to you.”

“Well, yeah. She’s awesome. Now c’mon, let’s eat. I want to skype with Niall later.”

“Oh right.” Louis had nearly forgotten about that. 

They both scarf down their meal, afterwards throwing their dishes in the dishwasher and covering the lasagna in tin foil. Louis puts it in the fridge as Eleanor wipes down the table, something she finds necessary to do for some reason.

When they’ve cleaned the kitchen to Eleanor’s satisfaction, Louis quickly runs upstairs to grab his laptop before joining her in the living room. They sit together on the left end of the couch, slumping into the pillows in a way that means they’ll have trouble getting back up again. Louis opens his skype and searches for Niall. He doesn’t have him on skype yet, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the guy named ‘Niall Horan’ is his friend. He checks the profile picture first just to be sure, before sending a friend request.

It’s accepted almost immediately, and Louis gets a notification soon after.

‘Louis?’ Niall writes. ‘Louis Tomlinson?’

‘Yeah, it’s me,’ he replies. Eleanor elbows him. ‘Can I call you?’

‘Sure.’

He presses the call button and soon after Niall's face fills his screen. “Hey! What’s up?” he says excitedly. 

“Nothing much,” the other replies. “My relatives are still going crazy from the aftermath of the wedding. Apparently someone's grandma gave the bride a massive gold ring and now everybody is freaking out because nobody even knew she was rich.”

Louis laughs. Eleanor pokes her head onscreen and takes a look at Niall. “He’s cute,” she says. “You should have a crush on him instead of Harry.”

Niall stares blankly at her. “I don’t know who you are,” he says, “but I agree 100%.”

“This is Eleanor,” Louis explains. “She’s my best friend who moved away last year.”

“Aw, I’m your best friend?” Eleanor purrs, holding a hand to her heart.

“Duh you are. Fuck off.”

Niall blinks at them. “Well, uh. I'm Niall. Nice to meet you.”

Eleanor looks away from Louis and smiles at him. “Hey. You should date Louis to help him get over Harry.”

“So you've said.” Niall scratches at his eyebrow. “I don't think my girlfriend would like that though.”

“Aw shoot,” Eleanor sighs. “Guess we’re going to have to resume plan larry.”

“Plan larry?” Louis rolls his eyes. Of course Eleanor made them a ship name. “Why'd you call us larry?”

“Well, would you rather be called houis or something?”

Louis frowns.

“I thought as much.” Eleanor turns back to Niall. “You can help me get them together now. What interesting things may I not know about Harry?”

Niall thinks. “Has Louis told you about H.T?”

Oh shoot, Louis completely forgot to tell her about that. He groans, Niall had supposedly figured out who it was almost immediately and decided to make him puzzle it out. He should’ve asked her for help. It’s an unwritten best friend code that she would have to tell him if she knew.

Eleanor’s eyes narrow. “What’s H.T?”

Niall tries to explain but Louis cuts him off. It’s his crush, after all. “Whenever I was in Harry’s room I would find little slips of paper with the initials H.T written on them. When I asked Harry he said it was the initials of the person he has a crush on at the moment. I asked who but he won’t tell me! He says I’ll hate him if I know.” Louis groans. “Do you have any idea?

Eleanor thinks, biting her lip in concentration.

“I’m pretty sure I know who it is,” Niall interjects, eliciting a whispered ‘fuck off’ from Louis.

After a moment of silent pondering Eleanor looks up and says, “yeah, I think I know too.”

“What?” Louis says, bewildered. “How can you guys know so fast?? I have absolutely no idea!”

“I, for one, think it’s pretty obvious,” Eleanor says smugly. “I never knew Harry was such a lovesick kid at heart though.”

Louis groans. “I can’t think of a single girl with the initials H.T. And Niall, you’ve only gone to our school for like two weeks, how do you know names better than I do?”

Eleanor cackles. “You’ve gotta think a bit more creatively sweetheart. You’ll get it at some point.”

“I hate you both. Why can’t you just tell me?”

Niall grimaces. “Sorry buddy, it’s just not our secret to tell.”

“Yeah.” Eleanor sends him a sad smile. “I honestly want to tell you, you know I do. But I think we’ll have to let Harry do that.”

Louis gives his friends a stink eye. Deep down, he knows they’re right, but it’s kind of a let-down to know that they could figure out in less than a minute what he still hasn’t figured it out in over a week.

“So,” Eleanor says to Niall, breaking the awkward silence. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do for fun?”

“I dunno. I moved here just a couple weeks ago from France. I’m not french, by the way. I just lived there. English is my second language, my first is actually Italian. I think I have Irish blood too though. So I’m basically an ungodly mixture of France, Italy, and Ireland.”

“That explains the accent,” Eleanor notes.

Louis chuckles as Niall continues. “I love to play guitar, uhh, I spend most of my waking hours doing that. Oh, I also play soccer. I’m on the team with Harry.”

Louis' head snaps up from where he had laid it on Eleanor’s shoulder. “What? You’ve never mentioned that! Why weren’t you at training yesterday?”

“Because I’m not in the same country, dumbass.”

“Oh,” Louis feels stupid. “Forgot about that.”

A moment later they hear a key turning in the lock, presumably Louis' mom home from her colleagues dinner. Eleanor stands up immediately to help her bring her stuff in, leaving Louis to hang up on Niall. “My mom is home,” he explains. “I should go. Talk soon!”

Niall waves at the lens as Louis presses the end call button and shuts his laptop, carrying it with him into the hallway where he sees Eleanor helping his mom out of her coat. “Hey mom,” he greets. “Uh, I’ll be upstairs if you need me.” He walks to the staircase and is soon joined by Eleanor.

“You up for binge-watching a show?” he asks.

Eleanor shakes her head. “I’m a bit jet-lagged. I’d rather just go to sleep.”

Louis smiles, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “Tomorrow, then.”

Eleanor smiles back tiredly. “Yeah, for sure.”

They don’t talk anymore when they get to Louis' room, both silently changing into their pyjamas. Louis notices, to his delight, that his mom hadn’t taken Harry’s clothes with the rest of the wash. He pulls them on gratefully, revelling in the comfort of the soft shirt. Eleanor joins him in the bathroom, where they silently brush their teeth. Not a word is spoken until they’ve both climbed into bed and are completely relaxed under the covers.

“Good night,” Eleanor calls out, sounding exhausted.

“Night, princess,” Louis says, smiling. He reaches out with his left hand to turn off his bedside light, which is the only light still on. He fishes his phone out of his pocket, having to contort himself a little because he’s under the blanket. When he’s got it out, he opens WhatsApp in hopes of texting Harry. To his surprise, he sees an unopened message from him that he’d been sent just a little over five minutes ago.

_I had a great time with you today, Li. We should do it again soon:)_

Louis smiles to himself. He vaguely remembers telling Niall once not to call him Li because it sounds like a pet name, but somehow he likes it when Harry says it.

He types quickly, feeling himself already drifting off to sleep. 

_I had fun too, Hazza._

He contemplates whether or not to send the text. After all, Harry had just called him Li, so he should be able to say Hazza. But what if he thinks it’s weird? Louis decides he’s overthinking it and just sends the text. Harry starts typing immediately.

_Hazza?_

_That’s new_

Shit, Louis panics. He thinks it’s weird. He’s just about to apologize when he gets another text.

_I like it though, it’s cute_

He smiles and adjusts his position on the bed, slowly drifting off with his phone still clutched in his left hand. The screen is still on and by the time it shuts off, he’s fast asleep.


	11. Eleanor leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soz 4 the delay m8s, i had a bio test and i forgot i was supposed to be updating

When Louis wakes up the next morning it’s to the sounds of Eleanor singing as she sets her folded pyjamas on her makeshift bed. He groans, running a hand through his hair as he checks the time. 9:14, he reads. Well that’s not too bad. With a grunt he pulls himself out of bed and goes to his closet to get his clothes for the day. He grabs a pair of jeans and blindly reaches for a shirt, throwing them both on his bed. He then strips himself of his pyjamas, forgetting that he’s not alone.

“Gah!” Eleanor cries, shielding her eyes. “Put some fucking clothes on!”

Louis pales. “I’m so sorry, I forgot you’re here!” Well, at least he hasn’t taken off his underwear yet. He grabs the small pile of clothes from his bed and quickly locks himself in the bathroom. Eleanor breathes a sigh of relief.

“I’m friends with an idiot,” she mutters under her breath.

“Hey!” he cries indignantly. “I can still hear you!”

“Shut up,” she retorts. “Your opinion isn’t valid until you’ve got clothes on.”

With that eventful morning fiasco, Louis and Eleanor walk downstairs together, sniffing the air like dogs. “It smells so good,” Louis remarks. “I think my mom made pancakes.”

When they walk into the kitchen, they find that Louis is right. There is a plate in the middle of the table with a small pile of pancakes atop it. He spots a note lying next to the plate, explaining that his mom is out shopping for groceries and will be back within the hour. Eleanor snatches the note from his hands and discards it. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s eat.”

*

The rest of the morning passes peacefully. Louis takes a lengthy shower as Eleanor calls her parents to give them an update into her travel. They have no plans for the day and spend a few hours lounging aimlessly in the living room, talking about anything and everything. This can only go on for so long, however, and they’re both reaching boredom by the time 2 o’clock comes around. Louis' mom had returned a couple hours ago and was now up in her room, doing weird yoga-meditation exercises she’d learned off a DVD that had been re-gifted to her.

Niall isn’t online when they try to call him, although he responds a few minutes later apologizing and promising to talk within the next few days. Harry isn’t available either, still tied up with the task of cleaning his house. He tells them that his relatives are staying until the 20th and he’s free every day after that. Louis checks the date. It’s currently the 16th of december, which leaves four more days until he can see Harry. Eleanor’s flight back is on the 23rd, leaving a narrow window for them to hang out as a threesome. He tells Harry this, who replies almost immediately and suggests they meet up on the 21st.

‘Same place?’ he writes.

‘See you then:)’

“Dude,” Eleanor prods him with her big toe from where she’s sitting. “What’s going on?”

Louis turns off his phone and chucks it blindly behind him. “Harry’s tied up until the 20th,” he says, “but he agreed to meet us at the ice cream place on the 21st.”

“Oh, nice! What about Niall?”

“Oh, uh.” He thinks. “He promised to talk with us more over the next few days. I don’t know when he’ll be back, but I think it’s safe to assume he’ll stay in Italy until after Christmas.”

“Aw, shoot.” Eleanor looks genuinely distraught. “I was excited to meet him!”

Louis reaches over and ruffles her hair, earning himself a kick in the shin. “Ow, fuck! I was going to comfort you, ya little shit!”

She laughs. “Sorry. You know you shouldn’t ruffle my hair, though.”

“Still,” he grumbles. “Don’t gotta kick me.”

“Come on, you drama queen,” she responds, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go outside.”

He shrugs in response, knowing they don’t have much else to do. They bundle themselves up in their winter gear, and Louis throws a winter glove at Eleanor in retaliation for the kick she had given him before. She ignores him and pulls on her winter boots. They leave soon after, stopping only briefly to shout that they’re leaving to his mom. She doesn’t respond, probably too wrapped up in her meditation to have heard them.

*

The next few days pass similarly, with both Eleanor and Louis waking up early and taking showers before heading out for the day. They stop by the school on monday, sitting on the benches outside so Eleanor can reminisce on her years spent there with Louis. They go to the cinema on tuesday, although the movie ends up being a lot more boring then they’d originally thought and both of them end up taking a nap during the film. Most of their time, however, is spent lounging around the living room, talking and watching netflix. The days pass quickly, much too quickly, and soon it’s already the morning of the 21st, two days before Eleanor is due to head home.

In the morning they both shower again, Eleanor out of personal hygiene reasons and Louis because it had just occurred to him that they’d be meeting with Harry again. He pulls on his favorite sweater afterwards, an old black one from a camp he’d gone to when he was younger, and pads downstairs to wait for Eleanor in kitchen.

He pulls out his phone to pass the time, texting with Niall for a few minutes before messing around on instagram. He resists the temptation to go through Harry’s profile (again), and instead stalks some random celebrity from a show he’s currently watching. He makes it as far back as the summer of 2013 before Eleanor joins him, fully dressed with her hair up in a towel. She has on a bit of lipstick, he notes.

Louis' eyes narrow. “Why the lipstick?” he questions innocently.

“It’s for an experiment I’m conducting,” she replies, grabbing a bagel from the breadbasket. “I’m wondering whether 24 hour makeup really lasts 24 hours.”

“Really?” Louis is surprised. 

“No, you twat. It’s just colored chapstick.” she laughs. “I can take it off if it’s making you all hot and bothered.”

He shudders. “Ew, no.”

Eleanor gasps, holding a hand over her heart. “You really think I’m that ugly? I’m offended!”

Louis rolls his eyes. “No, I’m just super fucking gay.”

She giggles, biting into her bagel. “Speaking of gay, have you arranged a time with Harry yet?”

“Oh, shoot I forgot. Thanks for reminding me.” He texts Harry, ignoring as Eleanor slides up to him to peer over his shoulder. They quickly arrange a time, 1 o’clock, and agree to meet at the front door of the cafe. They still have a couple hours to kill before they need to leave, so, grabbing some food as they go, they traipse back up to Louis' room and talk mindlessly for a while longer.

Time passes slowly but eventually the clock turns to 12:30 and it’s time to get ready to leave. They bundle up in winter coats and fluffy hats before stepping outside, texting Harry to tell him they’re leaving before they start walking. They go slowly, savoring their last few moments together as it’s the 21st and Eleanor leaves early in the morning on the 23rd. The walk is uneventful, save for when Louis nearly splits his head open on the pavement after slipping on a wet leaf. Eleanor is still cackling when they enter the ice cream shop a few minutes later.

They find a table and wait patiently, not ordering their food yet. Last time they’d ordered their food before Harry joined them and were consequently left to awkwardly watch him eat once they’d finished their plates. It was weird and uncomfortable, so this time they opted to wait and get everybody’s food at the same time. 

It’s not long before they hear the door opening, both snapping their heads up to find Harry standing alone in the doorway. His eyes search the room before settling on Eleanor. He then waves and walks over to their table. “Hey,” he says, pulling off his gloves as he looks at Louis. “Have you guys ordered yet?”

“Nope,” Louis answers. “We wanted to wait for you.” He keeps looking at Harry as he smiles and starts unzipping his jacket, draping it over the back of the seat next to him. Harry sits down next to him, and Louis can feel his heart actually stutter when their legs brush against each other under the table. He covers himself by reaching to the center of the table and grabbing a menu. He opens it and hides behind the pages. They sit in comfortable silence before Eleanor walks up to the bar, placing their orders.

Harry turns to him and smiles softly. “Hey,” he says. “Haven’t talked to you alone for a while. How’re you doing?”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “I’ve had a really good break so far, but I’m kind of sad Eleanor is going home after tomorrow.”

“Aww,” Harry frowns. “I’m starting to like her! I’ve even forgiven her for the sandwich thing!”

“Oh, wow,” Louis chuckles. “That’s huge.”

“I know, right!” Harry smiles. “But seriously, I think I’ll miss her. I might ask her for her number.”

“Wait,” Louis narrows his eyes suspiciously. “You don’t….. Have the hots for her, do you?”

Harry looks at him strangely. “No, dumbass. Remember I have a crush on that person I was writing the notes for? Which we are never going to talk about again, by the way!”

“Oh, right. I still don’t know who it is.” Louis sighs. “I wish you would just tell me.”

Harry shrugs. “I probably will, someday. I’m not one for keeping secrets from people.”

Louis pokes his arm. “Or you could just tell me right now.”

Harry pokes his stomach. “Or I also couldn’t”

Louis' about to poke him back when Eleanor joins them at the table, waiter in tow. He sets their food down and leaves, taking the menus with him. She sits down with them and the three of them tuck in, abandoning any conversation. 

They spend quite a long time in the cafe, watching different people mill in and out of the shop. The atmosphere is pleasant, although it’s slowly starting to dawn on Louis that this is one of the last days he’ll be able to hang out with Eleanor. Strangely, he doesn’t feel too sad about it. It’s been awesome to hang out with her again after so many months only being able to talk over the phone, but there’s only so much socialisation he can take at once. And after days on end of constant socialising, he’s finally at his limit. After Eleanor leaves he’s gonna crawl into his room and stay there until his mom drags him out on Christmas morning. 

“I should leave,” Harry says suddenly. He stands up, picking up his jacket and pulling it on. They’d only been in the cafe for about ten minutes, but Harry had finished his sandwich minutes ago, and probably felt weird just watching the other two eat.

Louis puts down the slice of pizza he’d been chewing at for two minutes to glance at him. It feels like he should ask Harry to stay but honestly, he wants to spend more time with Eleanor alone before she leaves. So, instead of arguing, he says, “okay! We’ll hang out after Christmas?”

An indescribable expression passes over Harry’s face before he says, “yeah. Maybe.” He leaves then, turning around slightly at the door to give them a wave, before leaving.

“So,” Eleanor says, turning to face his as she delicately wipes a spot of mustard off her upper lip, “do you have any plans for your birthday yet?”

“What? Oh, not really,” Louis replies. Honestly, he’d been so wrapped up in Eleanor’s visit and hanging out with Harry that he’d completely forgotten it was just days away. He briefly contemplating inviting Harry over, but he pushed the thought out of his mind as he realised Harry would want to be with his family on Christmas eve. 

Suddenly, with absolutely no prompting or reason, he a fleeting thought crosses his mind and he grabs on to it. “Dude,” he says. “Let’s come out to my mom!”

“What?” Eleanor chokes, halfway through swallowing a bite of her sandwich. “Right now??”

“Yeah, why not? I just remembered you said you’d help me do it a couple days ago!”

“Well, uh, sure I’ll help you. But are you sure you want to? This is kinda sudden.”

“Well, I’d rather do it right now and get it out of the way, you know? Plus, if I put too much thought into it I’d get way too anxious and end up not doing it.”

“True,” Eleanor says slowly. “Well, if you really want to do it, let’s go right now!” She stands up, pushing her chair in and bringing her dirty dish up to the counter. Louis grabs his jacket and wallet and runs to catch up to her as she leaves the store.

“Woah, woah. Slow down, man,” Louis says as he runs up beside her, already slightly out of breath. “We’re in no rush.”

“Eh, I just walk faster ‘cause I’m taller,” she replies, ruffling his hair to coax a reaction out of him.

Louis just rolls his eyes, ignoring the height comment. People make them all the times anyways, and it’s not like he really cares anyways. “Whatever, I like being short. Means I can hug Harry better.”

Eleanor chuckles, her breath turning white in the air. “Anyways,” she says, “have you thought of what to say to your mom?”

“Eh…… Nope. Figured I’d just wing it.”

“Really? What, you’re just gonna walk up like ‘HEY YO MA I’M GAY AS SHIT OKAY BYE!!’”

“Yeah,” Louis snorts, “Something like that.”

*

Ten minutes later as they’re walking up to Louis' front door, Louis is having a war in his head. Not on whether to come out or not, as he’s already firmly made his mind up on that, but rather on whether or not to actually come out the way Eleanor had jokingly suggested. On the one hand, Eleanor might actually start crying with laughter if he did it, but on the other hand, this was his coming out and he probably should take it a bit more seriously. In the end, he decides again to just wing it. Not the way Eleanor had suggested, though. 

“Hey mom, you here?” Louis calls out as they step through the doorway and kick off their boots. “MOTHER!!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m here!” she calls back from upstairs. “You need anything?”

“Yeah, come downstairs please! I have to tell you something.”

“Kay gimme a sec though!”

As they wait, Louis runs through a list of possible reactions his mom might have. The worst, one which is making him second guess himself, is the one where she gets angry and kicks him out of the house. ‘ _She would never do that, though_ ’ he thinks, trying to reassure himself.

‘ _Do what?’_ a voice responds.

Oh right! After days of silence, Louis had nearly forgotten about his telepathic link with Harry. Somehow he'd started to hear his crushes thoughts less and less over time. ‘ _Nothing, I'm just having some second thoughts about coming out to my mom.’_

‘ _You're coming out to your mom??’_ Harry replies, excited. ‘ _When did this become a thing?’_

_‘Dunno. It was a spur of the moment thing really,’_ Louis replies.

“Alright I'm done up here, coming down now!!” his mom calls out suddenly.

Louis wipes his hands on his pants and thinks, ‘ _alright, wish me luck.’_

‘ _Good luck man. Text me the outcome?’_

_‘Of course.’_

*

“So what do you need?” his mom asks, bounding down the steps in her bright pink yoga pants. Louis groans. Of course his mom would be wearing bright pink yoga pants during his coming out.

He gulps, losing all confidence he'd built up in himself. “Well I- uh. I just, um. It's not that important actually nevermind.”

“You sure?” his mom asks. “Seemed pretty important before.”

Eleanor elbows him. “Come on, I'm right here. Moral support for the win!!”

Louis cracks a slight smile, only to immediately start frowning again. He feels Eleanor's hand grab onto his, anchoring him. With a sudden surge of courage, he says, “well, I'm.” He pauses to take a breath. “I’m gay.”

“Okay,” his mom shrugs, smiling slightly. It seems as if, while she hadn’t expected it, the news has certainly not come as a shock to her. 

Louis doesn’t say anything, smiling in relief that his mom hadn’t stormed out or started yelling at him. Eleanor takes his silence as a good sign and nudges him with her shoulder. “See?” he says. “I told you she wouldn’t hate you.”

“Hate you? Honey,” she says reassuringly, “you know I don’t actually care, don’t you?”

Louis shrugs nonchalantly. Of course he knows his mom isn't homophobic, but it’s easier said than done when it comes to coming out. There's always been an irrational fear at the back of his mind that maybe she wouldn’t accept him, that she might find it weird. “I dunno,” he mutters.

“Oh, no no no! You know I love you no matter what, Boobear!” his mom reassures, pinching his cheek.

Louis blushes and bats away her hand as Eleanor laughs. “Boobear,” she repeats, snickering.

“Shut up.”

“Well, if that's all,” his mom interrupts, “I have some yoga to be getting back to.”

Louis laughs, “yes mom, that’s all. You can go back to your yoga.”

His mom smiles, briefly patting him on the arm before going back upstairs. A moment later they hear her trademark yoga music playing through the speakers upstairs. Louis smiles.

Ten minutes later, when they're upstairs and his mom had since returned to her yoga, he pulls out his phone to text Harry.

‘It went well’ he writes, seeing Harry start to reply almost immediately.

‘I'm glad xx.”

Louis smiles to himself, shutting off his phone and throwing it onto the bed behind him. He'd just come out to his mom. And everything went perfectly fine.

*

The last two days until Eleanor is due to leave pass rather quickly. After hanging out with Harry and coming out to Louis' mom on the 21st, they'd spent the 22nd packing up Eleanor's stuff and going for one last walk around town. They had tried to skype with Niall at night, but he was with his relatives at some fancy restaurant and wasn't allowed to leave the dinner table, something which evidently ticked him off. Harry went off the grid after their hangout on the 21st, although he'd told Louis beforehand so they weren't too worried about that. 

The morning of the 23rd of December, a Sunday, Louis was shaken awake at 4am by Eleanor, who stood fully dressed before him. “Come on,” she says. “We have to go!”

“What?” he mumbles, his voice still groggy. “What do you mean?”

Eleanor rolls her eyes at him. “My flight is at 8 o’clock, we have to leave!”

Louis sits up quickly. “It’s at 8 o’clock at night though? Go back to sleep!”

Eleanor blinks at him. “You’re kidding, right? My ticket says 8 o’clock-”

“-Exactly!” Louis interrupts. “If it was morning it would say 8am!”

“No,” Eleanor says, “if it was at night it would say 20 o’clock. The rest of the world doesn’t use your dumb am/pm system.”

Louis rubs his eyes. “Fuck. I guess that means I have to get up now?”

Eleanor nods, walking towards his closet. “Go brush your teeth,” she says. “I'll pick out some clothes for you.”

“Thanks.” Louis drags himself out of bed with a groan. He is not a morning person.

Fifty minutes later they’re standing in front of the gates to security. Louis had taken ages to get ready, which led to them being desperately behind schedule. The original plan was to be in the airport by 4:30am so that Eleanor and Louis could have a long, tearful goodbye, but that option was now out of the question. Their goodbye was rather a quick shove by Louis and an air kiss from Eleanor, and it was over the second she ran through security. She only turned around briefly to shout, “I’ll call you when I land!!” before she began hectically throwing her stuff into the security bins to get through as soon as possible. 

_‘Trust me and Eleanor to fuck up our goodbye this bad. How did we manage to come nearly half an hour late?’_ Louis thinks ruefully, once he and his mom are seated in the car. ‘ _Probably because I got up like an hour late, whoops’_ he realises. Harry doesn’t reply to the thought, presumably asleep. The ride home only last 15 minutes, but by the time they pull into the driveway Louis has fallen asleep. His mom, being the angel she she is, decides to leave him there.

And so three hours later, at the time he’d normally be getting up, he wakes up in his car with a pain in his neck. The reason he woke up, as it turns out, is a series of sharp knocks on the window. He groggily raises his head to see Harry standing outside the car, waving with one hand while using the other to hold up a bag of donuts.

“Hey,” Harry says, smiling, once Louis has rolled down the car window. “I brought you some breakfast!” He peers towards the house. “Eleanor’s gone, right?”

Louis sits up and nods. He grabs his jacket from the back of the car before opening the door and stepping out. He’s greeted by a gust of cold air, flushing his cheeks and making his breath turn to wisps of smoke. Harry bites his lip, making Louis' heart stutter, and asks, “wanna hang out today? I know your birthday is tomorrow and Christmas is after that, so we won’t be seeing each other for a while.”

Louis looks up at him. “Do you have anything in mind?”

Harry winks. “You’ll see.” He grabs Louis' arm and pulls him down the driveway, away from his house. “But first let’s eat these donuts!”

Harry, as it turns out, doesn’t have a plan. As they’re walking away from Louis' house, he admits that he didn’t have anything particular in mind, so long as they didn’t stay at home. They walk aimlessly for around ten minutes, eating the donuts, when Harry suddenly stops in his tracks, grabbing on to Louis' arm for good measure. “I have a great idea!” he declares, evidently proud of himself. “Let’s go to the school playground!”

“And that’s a good idea, how exactly?” Louis asks sarcastically. “That playground’s made for six year olds!”

“Well,” Harry ponders, “I’ve got the maturity of a six year old, and you’re about as tall as one, so I think we’ll fit right in!”

Louis scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Can’t argue with that.”

The walk to the playground is short, barely lasting three minutes. When they arrive, Harry throws open the foot-high gate with extreme gusto, before making an immediate beeline for the slides. “Watch me go down the slide!” he calls out behind him.

Louis watches, with a fond look in his eyes, as Harry stomps up the ladder, lightly banging his head on the handrail above him. He hears a harshly muttered curse before Harry reaches the top of the slide and sits down, rubbing his head. “Are you ready to see me go down?” he calls out. Louis nods, giving him a quick thumbs up. Harry grins and pushes off.

About two thirds of the way down, the inevitable happens. Harry gets stuck. The slide is only 6 inches wide, so it was bound to happen, but Louis still isn’t prepared for the adorable disgruntled expression that follows. “Dammit,” Harry groans, hitting the sides of the slide as if to make them release him. “I knew this was going to happen.” 

He ends up having to do an awkward shimmy to get himself to the bottom, and Louis' nearly pissing himself with laughter by the time he does. “Shove off,” Harry says, laughing. “The slide and I were never meant to be. I’m moving on to the big-boy equipment.” He looks around the playground before spotting a climbing wall. “There,” he says, pointing to it. “That’s the one.”

Louis watches, bemused, as Harry jogs over to the four foot climbing wall in the back corner of the park and squats before it. Still in his strange sitting position, he grabs on to a handhold and slowly start climbing.

“Truly the picture of elegance,” Louis laughs breathlessly, watching Harry as he attempts to scale the four foot climbing wall. The foot holds are too small for his feet, and it isn’t long before Harry manages to fall off, hitting his ass on the way down.

“Agh,” he groans, standing up and rubbing his behind. “I should not have done that.”

Louis giggles. “The thought is only occurring to you now??”

“Shut up,” Harry smiles. “Meanie. I’m done with playing now anyway, let’s go to the swings.”

Louis shrugs in response and follows him to the swing set. The swing are also too short for them, hovering around fifteen inches off the ground, but they both ignore it and sit. They swing a couple times before Harry stops abruptly, turning to face Louis. “I wanted to ask,” he starts, “how did your coming out go? Like, how did you do it?”

Louis shrugs, also coming to a halt on his tiny swing. “I kinda just told her, really. She just said ’okay’, as if she wasn’t really surprised by it.” Louis frowns. “Then she called me Boobear, though. Eleanor’s gonna make fun of me for weeks about that one.”

Harry smiles. “Mind if I call you Boobear?”

“Um yes I would mind, thank you,” Louis says, appalled. He thinks for a moment. “You can call me something else though, if you’re creative enough to think of a nickname.”

Harry grins wickedly. “How ‘bout I call you babe?”

Louis' eyes widen. “I- uhh,” he stutters. In truth, he would very much like to be called that. Possibly under different circumstances, though.

“Well, babe, how’s life?” Harry asks, taking his silence as a yes. “We haven’t talked much since Eleanor came to visit. How’s your crush doing? Starting to get over it?”

Louis buries his face in his hands, suddenly blushing. “He’s fine,” he says nonchalantly. “My crush is still as hopeless as ever and no, it’s not going away.” He groans. “God, I wish it would go away. Why do I always crush on the straight ones?”

Harry reaches over and pats his arm. “It’s the universe’s way of saying fuck you. I got fucked over too, if it’s any consolation. I am now almost certain I know who my crush is crushing on. And no, it’s not me.”

Louis frowns. “I’m sure you have a chance with her. My problem is that my crush is just entirely not attracted to my gender, you’ve got it easier. Maybe just give her signs that you like her?”

Harry groans, running his hands over his face. “I do! They’re just so oblivious!”

“What signs?”

“Well, I hang out with them as much as I possibly can, for starters. I really like hanging out with them, but I think they’d rather hang out with their other friends, which sucks. I also compliment them a lot? I think the world of them, and I want to make sure they know that.” Harry looks at the ground. “I hug them a lot too. I nearly kissed them once, but I chickened out in the last second and went for a cheek kiss instead.”

“All that and she still hasn’t realised?”

“Completely oblivious.”

“Dumb girl,” Louis says.

“Yeah,” Harry echos, staring at him. “Dumb girl.”


	12. Louis' birthday

Louis wakes up on the 24th of December, his birthday, with a nagging feeling in his stomach. He’s hungry.

What else is new.

He gets up quickly, throwing on an old sweater before heading downstairs. His mom isn’t awake yet so, not knowing how to cook, he makes himself a bowl of cereal before heading to the living room. He turns on the TV, planning on watching some cartoons, when his phone starts buzzing with an incoming video call. Who would be calling him at 7am on his birthday? Probably his grandma.

As it turns out, it isn’t his grandma. But he almost wishes it was, because when he answers the phone, his ear is filled with the horrible sounds of Eleanor trying to sing happy birthday to him. “Shut up!” he yelp, thrusting his phone away from him. “You know you can’t sing for shit!!”

Eleanor laughs, and Louis cautiously picks up his phone again.”Happy birthday!!” she grins. “I can’t believe you’re finally fifteen, you young soul!”

Louis smiles. “Shut up! Just because you’re a couple months older than me-”

“And you’re the youngest in the grade, don’t forget!” Eleanor laughs. “Has Harry wished you a happy birthday yet?”

“Nope, I don’t know if he will, though. He’s probably forgotten about it.”

As if on cue, Louis' phone buzzes with an incoming text. He checks the sender, and his face immediately splits into a happy grin. Eleanor raises her eyebrows. “From the look on your face, I’m assuming that was Harry. I’m going to make this really short so you can attend to your priorities.”

“Thanks. I’m shitting myself to read what he wrote.”

Eleanor grins. “Well, so. You know your my best friend, have been since we were like 4. I was worried that because I moved back to England we might fall out of touch, but it hasn’t been like that at all. I can still tell you everything. Thank you for always being here for me, especially when Josh dumped me in seventh grade. God, remember when Josh dumped me in seventh grade? Devastating.”

Louis laughs. “Yeah, I remember that.”

“Seventh grade heartbreak, the worst of them all,” she jokes. “Anyways, yeah. We have so many great memories together, even the weird ones are good ones to me. Remember when I had a crush on you in third grade? Weird memory, but it was funny.”

“I forgot about that!” Louis exclaims. “Little did you know I was secretly crushing on Hailey from 4th grade. That was back in my straight phase.”

Eleanor laughs. “Ah, Hailey. I remember when you had a crush on her.” She pauses. “I also remember when you later had a crush on her brother Jason, he was hot. Or whatever 10 year olds think is hot. Anyways, I’m getting off topic again. I wish you the best of luck with dating Harry, I honestly think you’d be a great couple. And regardless of what you say, he isn’t out of your league and you might even be out of his. I’m going to go now because you have a Harry to reply to, but I need you to know how much you mean to me. I know you don’t always believe people when they say these things to you, but you really mean the world to me. You’re my best friend.”

“Thanks,” Louis says quietly.

“I’m going to go now though. Happy birthday!! Give your mom a big ol’ kiss for me.” She waves and hangs up.

Louis sits quietly for a moment, thinking. He can’t believe Eleanor would say he’s out of Harry’s league; he obviously isn’t. He shakes it off. She just said that to boost his confidence. Before he can overthink it, he opens Harry’s text. 

It starts with a simple ‘happy birthday babe!!’ 

Louis blinks. Apparently the babe is still a thing. He continues reading.

_‘Louis, I know we’ve only been talking for a couple weeks, but you’ve already become one of my best friends. Although the whole mind reading thing was a kind of strange way to start a friendship, I’m really glad it happened. It’s been less than a month but I already can’t imagine my life without you._

_One thing, sometimes you say some things that make me really sad. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but whenever I tell you that you never seem to believe me. You’re also super funny, cute, and although you may not be the best soccer player, you can draw a hell of a lot better than I can. I tell you all these things but you somehow think I’m joking. Also when I joked about having a crush on you, you said you didn’t believe me because I’m “out of your league”. Louis, that is really untrue. If anything, you’re way out of my league. It really does make me sad when you don’t believe all the good things people say about you. You’re really important to me and I’m going to make sure that you know it._

_This text is already way too long, so I’m going to cut to the chase. I wish you the best of birthdays, and I hope to see you after Christmas to give you my present. Even though our telepathic link seems to be wearing off, I want to keep being friends with you._

_Love you xx.’_

Louis stares at the text for the next two minutes, rereading it so often he almost has it committed to memory. Also, what? Why does the general theme of birthday texts seem to be people telling him that he’s out of Harry’s league? He really doesn’t understand what people see in him to make them think that.

He briefly wonders what Harry got him for his birthday, but pushes the thought to the back of his mind. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up just in case he was kidding about that. Instead, he focuses on the fact that Harry had called him his best friend. Harry, the boy he’s been crushing on for almost two years now, considers him to be one of his best friends. Although it’s created some awkward situations for him, he silently thanks whatever gave him and Harry the telepathic link. Without it, Louis might never have even started talking to Harry. He also thanks whatever possessed Harry to write the words ‘love you’ at the bottom of his text. Those two words will be the source of Louis' happiness for the next month.

His phone buzzes again, this time with a text from Niall. Feeling overwhelmed, Louis decides to read it later and throws his phone on the couch.

*

An hour passes before Louis' mom comes rushing downstairs. “Louis?” she calls out. “Where are you?”

“Living room,” he calls back.

There are a few thumps and the distinctive sound of something falling on the floor before Louis' mom appears in the doorway, holding up a small stack of presents. “Your grandparents are stopping by later today, figured you’d want to open your presents before they get here.”

He smiles. “Yeah, thanks.” Opening presents in front of relatives is always extremely awkward. He shifts to the end of the couch as his mom sets down the gifts next to him.

“Start with this one,” she says, pointing a middle size package with a Disney princess bow.

“Nice bow choice,” Louis chuckles as he tears into the gift. Inside there is a phone case, which he turns over to find a picture of the hogwarts insignia on it. “Thanks mom,” he says, grinning like a complete fanboy. He loves Harry Potter, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t have a slight crush on Daniel Radcliffe growing up. Not that his mom needs to know that particular detail. He sets the case to the side and dives in for the next present, a small red envelope. In it he finds a gift card to the coffee shop he always goes to with Harry. He makes a mental note to invite him one day.

The next gift is slightly larger, bearing resemblance to presents that often contain books or movies. He tentatively unwraps it and, sure enough, a book titled ‘Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda’ falls out. He grins up at his mom. “I’ve read this book about a million times, mom. I love it, how’d you know?”

His mom shrugs sheepishly. “It was on sale at Walmart, to be honest.”

“That’s fair.”

There’s only two presents left after that. One more book, this one titled ‘Blart: the boy who didn’t want to save the world’, and a friendship necklace pack, with two necklaces that form one heart. Louis' mom quickly explains that it came free with the book and she gave it as a gag. “I know you didn’t get much today,” she says, “but you’re going to get bigger presents tomorrow, because it’s-.”

“Christmas,” Louis interrupts. “I know, this happens every year.” He stands up and walks around the couch to give his mom a hug. “Thank you for the birthday gifts, though,” he mumbles into her shoulder.

“Of course.”

*

The rest of the day passes uneventfully, until 3pm rolls around. Louis lounges around the house for the better part of the morning, reading his new books and waiting for his grandparents to show up. When they do it’s a whole affair; they have their own small stack of presents and his grandma seems to be carrying what must be 4 pounds of cake in her arms. He greets them before taking the container from her and bringing it to the kitchen as his mom carries their bags to the spare bedroom. After he has set down the luggage, briefly stopping to straighten the pillows, he returns to the front hallway to find his mom telling his grandparents the story of how he’d came out.

“Mom,” he harshly whispers. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, relax honey, they had a bet going.” She frowns. “Don’t know why, though.”

His grandma rolls her eyes. “It was a one-sided bet,” she explains. “Your grandfather just wanted to make 20$ off me.”

“Aha…” Louis doesn’t know how to feel about this. He decides to change the subject. “So, how’s your seniors club?” His grandparents had just joined a club for the elderly, where they do things like knit and play bingo.

“Oh it’s lovely honey!” His grandma claps her hands together in excitement. “Just last week we started playing solitaire!”

“Ah, the instructor’s really keeping things alive in there,” Louis jokes.

“Ah, shut up,” his grandpa says, batting him on the arm.

*

They hang around the living for for another half hour or so, his grandparents making small talk about Louis' friends and how school is going. He can only take so many questions about his personal life before he gets annoyed, so Louis is glad to hear the doorbell ring, which gives him an excuse to leave. 

He opens the front door on the third ring, startling Harry, who quickly withdraws his hand from the doorbell. “Hey,” Louis says, stepping out onto the steps and closing the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, hey,” Harry says sheepishly. He awkwardly holds up a terribly wrapped present. “Happy birthday. I brought you a little something,” he says lightheartedly.

“You’re a creep, constantly showing up like this,” Louis jokes.

“Do you want the present or not?” Harry raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, sure. Gimme.”

Harry gives him a lopsided grin and hands him the badly wrapped present. It’s surprisingly soft, for the most part, except for a small square part on top that is harder than the rest. Louis guesses it’s a book. He pinches the corner on the wrapping and tugs, easily undoing the packaging. What falls out is not entirely what he’d expected. It’s a small picture frame, which he turns over to see a picture of Harry when he was five years old.

“You always look at that picture when you come over, figured I may as well give it to you.”

Louis smiles. “I love it, thank you.” He decides not to mention that his first thought when he saw it was to hang on his wall. He tears the wrapping on his present a little more, revealing a maroon soccer sweatshirt with the number 28 on it. “Why a soccer sweatshirt? You know I can’t play soccer.”

Harry laughs. “That’s a sweatshirt from the school team. You can wear it next time you come to training.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Louis says, amusedly rolling his eyes. “Why the number 28 though?”

“That’s my number on the team. I would’ve gotten you a different number, but I could only order from the numbers of players on the team, that okay with you?”

“Um, yeah.” That’s more than okay. The thought of walking around with Harry’s soccer number on his sweater is a great thought to Louis. Even better when he realises that some people might think he’s actually wearing Harry’s sweater. “Your presents are perfect, thank you.”

“Speaking of,” Harry says. “What did you get for your birthday?”

“Oh, um.” Louis scratches his nose. “Two books, a phone case, a gift card, and one of those two part best friend necklaces.”

“Wait, a best friend necklace? Seriously?” Harry laughs. “You should give me the other half.”

“I mean, if you want it.”

“Hell yeah.”

“Feel free to come in” Louis offers. “the necklace is upstairs.”

Louis is already wearing his half on the necklace. He absentmindedly plays with it as they go upstairs. Harry is a couple meters behind him, he had to take a second to hang his coat on the rack in the hallway. Louis' can hear his grandparents chatter cease, which means they will soon come looking for him. He groans, introducing Harry to his grandparents is definitely not something he ever thought he'd have to do. Especially on his birthday. 

When they get to Louis' room Harry lets himself fall dramatically onto the bean bag. Louis crosses over to his desk to grab the second half of the necklace. He sets down Harry's presents before turning back to him and handing over the necklace.

Harry takes the necklace from him and awkwardly fumbles with it before clasping it around his neck. He puckers his lips and poses. “Does it make me look hot?”

“I mean- yeah,” Louis splutters. “You look hot in anything.”

Smooth.

Harry laughs, beginning to play with the necklace the way Louis had on the way upstairs. “So, I guess we're best friends now,” he jokes. “Hope Eleanor won't be too jealous.”

“Oh, she's gonna kill you.”

“It’s a competition?” Harry pretends to look tough, cracking his knuckles and jutting out his jaw. “Tell her I'm coming for her. You're mine.”

Louis chokes a little. The casual possessiveness of what Harry had just said made his heart stutter quite harshly. Painfully, even. He tries to suppress the noise that comes from the back of his throat at Harry's words, but it ends up sounding like he’d thrown up a bit in his mouth. Not appealing. “When are you going home?” He asks Harry, diverting his attention away from his weird choking noises.

Harry feigns a gasp. “Are you kicking me out? How harsh.”

“Oh no,” Louis backtracks. “I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just that it’s Christmas Eve, shouldn’t you be with your family?”

“Yeah, I need to get home soon.”

*

At 7 o’clock, the family sits down to have dinner. Louis' mom had never been a fan of big fancy dinners, so their Christmas meal would just be like any other. She had offered Harry a place at the table, but he’d said he needed to get back to his family. Louis spent the rest of the day up in his room waiting to be called to dinner.

Finally it was time. Louis makes his way downstairs to help set the table. “What are we having?” He asks as he helps his mom bring the silverware to the dining room. “Something smelled good in the slow cooker earlier.”

“Oh yes, your grandparents brought some stew with them. Are you coming, Robert?” His mom shouts towards the kitchen.

“One second,” his grandfather calls back. Louis waits with his mother at the dinner table as his Grandpa adds the finishing touches to the soup. There are a couple small scuffling noises, and then he enters the dining room, carrying the steaming pot of stew with a large ladle. “Say hello to Stewie.” He grins; he had obviously been waiting for a while to make the joke.

“Oh god, Robert.”

“Stewie?” Louis rolls his eyes. “How long did it take you to come up with that one?”

“Shush, let’s eat.” His grandfather sets the pot down on the table and takes a seat. “Oh, I forgot the cheese grater in the kitchen,” he realises, dramatically facepalming. “Louis, would you grab it for me?”

“Ugh, do I have to?” Louis complains.

“Yes, you ungrateful child,” his grandfather jokes. Suddenly his face lights up. “I just made a pun without even trying! I’m so cool.”

“We’re all so proud.”

*

Dinner passed quickly. The stew was a bit over salted, but they balanced it out with bread, so it tasted fine in the end. Louis' mother told a story from her work that day, (a coworker had brought her daughter in- apparently she thought it was take your kid to work day), while his grandpa nodded alone, pretending to enjoy his over salted stew.

“Is there going to be dessert?” Louis asks, leaning back in his chair.

“Well, I was going to suggest some bowls of cereal, but someone ate them all while we were at work.” He looked pointedly at Louis, who raised his arms in defence. “One might even say there’s a cereal killer on the loose.”

“Grandpa, no.”

*

Later in the night, when his mom is driving her parents to their hotel, Louis kicks back and tries to read a book titled ‘don’t get caught’. He’d gotten it over around a year ago, probably for his 14th birthday, and still hasn’t gotten around to reading it. He can’t make it past the first 2 pages. He cracks the book open and begins reading.

Not five minutes later, Louis snaps the book shut. Yet again, the first page throws him off too much: Louis decides to never read the book. It’s too confusing. Too incomplete.

He texts Niall instead. 

“Hey, when do you get back?”

“Only when school starts, sorry Lou.”

*

Before long break is coming to an end and it’s nearly time to go back to school. Louis and Niall briefly fell out of touch over Christmas, but began speaking again regularly towards the end of the break. Eleanor texted him occasionally, but she was otherwise too caught up with her family to talk much. The one person Louis was especially looking forward to seeing was Harry. It felt like it had been ages since he’d seen him, even though it had only been a week since his birthday. Surprisingly, Harry had texted him every single day, whether it be just to say good morning or to send Louis pictures of himself.

That was another thing. Harry kept sending Louis pictures of himself, sometimes with his relatives and sometimes by himself in his room. Louis saved every single one, even briefly considering setting one as his phone wallpaper before telling himself that that would be super creepy.

He was looking forward to school starting again. Seeing Niall, seeing Harry? School was going to be great.


	13. Valentine's Day

Three weeks had passed since school started again. soccer season had officially started and with that came more practices. Harry was gone most nights of the week: The coach had called for practices to be held on Mondays and Wednesdays, leaving Thursdays as the only days he was free. They hadn’t spoken much since school started again, even though Louis wanted to, because they were in different friend groups and only had a couple classes together. On the plus side, the seating order in maths stayed the same, meaning that Louis and Harry sat together every time. So, at bare minimum, they saw each other three times a week. Niall had also gone to the director and requested to switch from biology to chemistry, so Louis finally had someone to talk to during class (previously he’d spent the time staring holes through Harry and Zayn’ backs).

Things were good.

Louis and Niall also decided to join the newspaper club, which took place during lunch every Wednesday. It was nice, it gave them credit with their English teachers and gave them an excuse to cut the lunch line. 

Even though they’d only known each other for a couple months, Louis and Niall were beginning to grow really close. Like, Louis and Eleanor close.

The bell rings. It’s the end of another Thursday, and time for Louis and Niall to go down to the soccer fields. They’d agreed to co-write an article for the newspaper about school sport, and soccer was the most supported one. Of course, they’d mainly agreed to write the article because it meant being required to watch at least two practices, which Niall, after 7 minutes of begging from Louis, agreed wasn’t too big of an ask. 

Louis cleans up his brushes and brings the canvas he’d been working on to the other side of the room. Thursday afternoons are always relaxing; Harry was in english and Niall in music, so Louis had an entire double period of art to himself to focus on whatever he wanted to focus on. And besides, he really likes art, so it’s nice to be able to focus on it. Last year with Eleanor had been a nightmare. Since it was the only class they shared that Harry wasn’t in, she always bombarded him with questions about it and wanted to use the period to talk about things. It didn’t help that she hated art. This year, with her living in England again, Louis could properly focus on his artworks.

“Hey, dude,” Niall calls out to him as he reaches his desk. “C’mon, we’re gonna be late for practice. It starts at 3:45, which is in...” he checks his phone, “three minutes. What’s taking you so long?”

“Sorry,” Louis replies, carrying his palette to the sink to run water over it. “I have to clean up my shit before I leave. You go without me, I’ll just be a minute.”

“Nah,” Niall replies. He walks up to the canvases left by the other art students. “I don’t wanna deal with Harry on my own. Remember when I went to practice before you on Monday? Dude wouldn’t shut up asking if you were okay. Thought he was gonna have a heart-attack or something.”

“To be fair, I did miss chemistry to go to a doctors appointment that morning. And I forgot to text him, that’s bound to get someone worried.”

“You didn’t text me either and I didn’t really care.”

“Right. Thanks for that, by the way.” Louis sets the cleaned palette aside and takes off his apron. “I’m ready to go now.” He grabs his backpack and earbuds. 

“Good. We should hurry, Harry’s probably in cardiac arrest by now.”

*

Later, after practice has finished, they head to Niall's house to work on the newspaper article. A thin layer of snow blankets the path they walk along to get to the bus stop, where they see a hooded figure, hunched over and playing with his fingers as he stares ahead onto the road. As they approach the stop the person hears them and turns around. To their surprise it's-

“Harry?” Louis calls out, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, um,” he stands up, nodding towards Niall in acknowledgment. “I’m going over to Zayn’. I didn’t know you take this bus, don’t you walk home?”

“Usually, yeah, but Niall and I are going to his house to work on our article.”

“Oh, which stop?”

“Glensdale road, near the library?” Niall answers. “It’s really close, we’re just taking the bus cause it’s late.”

“Hey that’s where I’m going! Zayn lives right next to the park, you?”

“I live between the park and the library, Zayn must be really close to my house.”

“Huh, yeah.”

“You’re welcome to walk with us, if you want,” Louis offers. He wants Harry and Niall to become friends too, this could be the perfect opportunity! They already have French and Physics together without him, but Niall says they sit far apart and have never had a proper conversation.

“Uh, sure.” Harry stands up, pulling the strap of his soccer bag onto his shoulder while walking towards them. “Know when the bus comes?”

“Should be about another five minutes,” Niall says, checking his phone. “Wait, hold on a sec. My dad is calling.” He answers the phone and slowly walks off.

“So,” Harry begins, stepping towards Louis and adjusting his bag again. “Back at soccer practice so soon?” This will be the first time they've properly talked all week.

Louis chuckles. “Never again, I was just watching for a newspaper article I’m writing with Niall.”

“Oh, cool.” Harry tries hard to look interested. “Do you want to come to my next soccer game then instead? You can enjoy the game without having to do any exercise!”

“Oh? My interest is peaked.” Louis grins. “Count me in for the next game.”

Harry smiles. “It’s on the 15th, I expect to see you there.”

“Will do. Oh man, Eleanor’s gonna be so proud to hear I'm going back to a sports field!”

Harry nods. Suddenly his face lights up and he says, “speaking of Eleanor, who do you have a crush on?”

Louis blinked. “What? How does that have anything to do with Eleanor?”

“Eh,” Harry shrugged, “we haven’t talked about your love life for a while, and cause our weird mind-connection thing has worn off I haven’t heard any of that buzzing that I used to.”

“Oh yeah!” Louis frowns. “Why did it wear off actually? Just two months ago I could hear every thought you had? Come to think of it, I haven’t heard anything from you in at least three weeks.”

“Yeah, same for me. We’ll have to look into what caused the connection in the first place, though. Still haven’t figured that out.”

Niall walks up to them again. “Hey Louis, my dad just told me my aunt is here for a surprise visit, so I can’t have guests over tonight. Can we make it up next week?”

“Of course.” Louis turns to Harry with a grimace. “Guess I’ll be going home now. Nice to see you?”

“Yeah!” Harry smiles and adjusts his bag so it rests on his other shoulder, spanning across his chest. “We haven’t hung out since break, we should catch up soon!”

“Of course! Maybe another soccer-to-sleepover?” Louis suggests. Then, in response to the excited look on Harry’s face, he adds, “but not after another practice, I don’t think I want to do that ever again. This time it’ll be after a game, okay?”

“Aww, okay.” Harry puts on a pouty expression. “I loved having you at practice last time, you were so… _bad_.”

Louis scoffs. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

*

In chemistry on Monday they do voltaic cell experiments for the entire lesson, paired with their desk partners.

“When’s Harry’s next game?” Niall asks as they set their equipment up on the desk between them. “You haven’t been invited to any recently.”

“Oh, yeah. The first official game is on February 15th.”

“Oooh, the day after valentine’s day. How romantic.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Not for me. How about your romance life? How’s Thalia?”

“Eh,” Niall shrugs. “She’s good. We broke up though.”

“What?! When? Why didn’t you tell me?” Louis sets a beaker on the table with unnecessary force.

“Over the break,” Niall explains. “I honestly just forgot to tell you.”

“Why’d you break up? If I’m allowed to ask.”

“Oh course you can, dumbass.” He pulls a flask out from under the sink and fills the first beaker with zinc sulfate. “We hadn’t been talking so much because of the distance, and when I visited she asked me how I felt about our relationship.”

“And?”

“I told her I wasn’t really into her anymore and I’d rather just be friends.”

“Oh? How’d she take it?”

“Fine, actually. She told me that she was planning on breaking up with me anyways cause she’d got feelings for another guy. Liam. I used to be friends with him.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. That’s rough.” Louis pours copper sulfate into the second beaker and drops a thin piece of copper in.

“Eh, not really. I’m also into somebody else.” Niall reaches behind Louis' back for a piece of zinc, which he drops into his beaker. He then makes quick work of connecting the two beakers by a saltwater dampened slip of paper.

“Oh shit, who?” 

“Do you know Allison? She’s in theater and does cheerleading? Her.”

Louis does a double take. “Allison Atkins?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Everybody knows she and Zayn have a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Yeah, they’re both super into each other. Pretty much the entire grade has been waiting for them to get together for the past 2 years.”

Niall shrugs. “If they really wanted to get together, they probably would have done it sooner. 2 years is a long time, I’m sliding in.”

“Good luck with that.”

Niall just winks and attaches a wire to the piece of zinc.

*

That afternoon they head to Niall's house together to make up for the news article writing session they had missed. They finish pretty quickly: Most of the time was spent copy-pasting their notes from practice onto a document and slightly rewording it. When they’ve finished, Niall shuts his laptop with a satisfying snap and swivels around on his desk chair.

“Hey Louis.”

“Yeah?”

“Will you help me write a Valentine’s Day note to Allison?”

Louis coughs. “Are you sure that the smartest idea? Zayn will come for you.”

Niall shrugs. “Let him. I just figured as long as the student council’s doing that note thing I may as well jump in on it.”

“Oh my gosh, I forgot about that.” Louis groans. “Here’s to another year of watching Harry get 27 valentine's while I get none.”

“Hey!” Niall swats his arm. “I’ll write you a valentine!”

Louis smiles at him.

“Right after we write one for Allison.”

“Fine.”

*

January passes quicker than it came and February follows soon after, bringing with it runny noses and cold-bitten faces. Newspaper club carries steadily on and Louis and Niall start working on their second story together: Does the art department deserve more funding?

As the deadline for the note-submission comes closer, Niall perfects his note to Allison, asking her out, and hands it in. Louis refuses to write Harry a note, but he does make plans with him for a sleepover on the 15th of February, right after his soccer game.

*

Valentine’s Day comes and it’s time for the student councils note passing. Louis spends his day carefully avoiding the student council, who are prowling around the school dressed as cupids, handing random people notes tied with pink ribbons. Louis doesn’t want to deal with the inevitable embarrassment that will come when one of them catches sight of him, stops to check their list of names, and tells him nobody wrote a valentine for him. Too awkward. He could find Niall or Harry and hide with them, but Niall is on the other side of the school, meeting with the chemistry teacher to discuss how to catch up everything he’d missed while in biology, and Harry is bound to be receiving valentine’s all day long: At least 2 of the cupids are probably looking for him as Louis hides. Besides, last time Louis had seen Harry, thirty minutes prior, he’d already been clutching 3 cards and a box of chocolates. 

Technically, Louis could have probably gotten away with sending Harry a valentine. Just to anonymously vent about his feelings. It’s not like Harry would realize, he already has multiple valentine's to read. He wouldn’t notice Louis' handwriting unless he was specifically looking for it. Which, judging by Louis' carefully crafted methods of keeping his feelings a secret, he wouldn’t be.

*

Halfway through the morning, as Louis is leaving his locker to head to class early, Niall intercepts him in the hallway. 

“Louis!” Niall shouts his name and runs towards him. “Louis I need your help.”

“What do you mean?” He narrows his eyes. “Who did you kill.”

“Shut up, I’m serious.” Niall pulls him into an empty broom closet. “I wrote a note to Allison.”

“Yeah, I know.” Louis laughs. “I was there when you wrote it?”

“No, yeah, I know. But that’s not the problem.”

“Oh, shit. She rejected you, didn’t she.”

“No! Just let me finish!”

Louis puts his hands up in mock-surrender. “Alright! Don’t get your panties in a bunch…”

“Okay, okay.” Niall wrings his hands together. “Basically, Allison never got the note. Zayn did.”

“Zayn like Harry’s best friend?” Louis asks. “Why would he-”

“I dunno! Either way, he came to me and said thanks for the note and when I asked what he was talking about, he showed me the note I wrote to Allison. The one where I said she’s hot and I’d like to go out sometime?”

“You mean the note I wrote _with you_?” Louis laughs and raises his eyebrows. “But I don’t see the problem. Didn’t you just explain who it was meant for and take it back?”

“No, that’s the problem.” Niall throws his hands up. “He didn’t give me the chance to!”

“So you got rejected by Zayn instead of Allison. Still don’t see a problem here.”

“Noo,” Niall drops his voice to a dramatic whisper. “The problem is… He didn’t reject me.”

“What?” Louis cried. Unexpected. “I thought? Allison? And Zayn? What?”

“He said he and Allison are just friends and the rumors are bull. Says he’s actually gay but he didn’t mind people assuming he was straight.”

“I… I mean, I get that. But still, what?”

“Apparently I’m the first guy to ‘show interest’, so he asked me out so we could see where things go?”

Louis gapes at him. “But did… Didn’t you reject him? Aren’t you into Allison? Aren’t you _straight_?”

Niall shrugs and lets out a sigh. “I didn’t want to reject him. I mean, this is the first guy he’s asked out! I think I’m gonna go on a date with him and tell him after I’d rather be friends. Give him a good first guy date, you know?”

Louis swallows thickly. “That’s… Man. That’s a really good way to handle this.”

Niall grins. “I know, I’m an awesome person. Besides, I’d probably do the same if a girl asked me out, and I really don’t care if people think I’m gay after this.”

“You’re a really good guy, Tom.”

“So you think it was good? Saying yes?” Niall lets out a puff of air. “Good. I feel kinda guilty. Don't wanna make him feel lead on or anything.”

“I get that. But I think you handled it right. I wouldn't want to be rejected by the first guy I had the courage to ask out.” Louis scratches behind his ear before adding, “you know, cause this wouldn't be like a normal rejection. If you'd have admitted the card was meant for a girl, it might have pushed Zayn further into the closet. You did good.”

“Thanks.” The bell rings then, effectively cutting into their conversation. They need to leave the broom closet and head to class. As Niall walks out, he turns around to Louis and winks, saying, “who knows, maybe I'll walk out of this whole ordeal with a hot-ass boyfriend.”

Just as Niall utters the words _hot ass boyfriend_ , Louis makes eye contact with Harry from across the hallway. A sign from god, honestly. He's standing on his own, leaning against a row of lockers and the second their eyes meet, his dart down to the floor and he starts playing with the sleeves of his hoodie. He seems nervous about something. Louis is about to walk up to him and ask when he sees Zayn beat him to it, resting a hand on his shoulder and whispering something in his ear. Knowing Harry's better off in the hands of his best friend, Louis leaves for class.

*

Only fifty minutes after Niall's dating drama, Louis gets some of his own. It comes in the form of an 28th grader dressed as cupid who sneaks up behind him, prodding his shoulder before digging through her satchel the moment he turns around.

_Shit, shit, shit_ Louis thinks. _Am I getting a card from someone?_ He sure could use some of Harry’s thoughts right about now.

Sure enough, the girl hands him a scroll tied with a pink ribbon and pulls out a clipboard. Louis sees her checking his name off a list before walking away. 

He got a _note_?

_Louis_ got a note?

Checking to make sure there’s nobody around him, he hastily slides the pink ribbon off the paper and unfolds it. 

_Hey, Louis._

_I decided to write a quick little note to you because, well, it’s Valentine’s Day and this might be my only chance to tell you how I feel. Even if anonymously. Truth is, I really really like you. In the heart stutters, wanting to kiss you kind of way. I think we have a deep connection. So far you haven’t noticed, but I’m worried you’re gonna catch on soon enough. So I’ve decided to confess. Tomorrow, if you’re at the soccer game, I’ll find you._

_L.S._

_ps. If you really want to know who I am, the initials might help you._

Louis read over the note once, twice, four times just to make sure he’d gotten everything right. Who was L.S.? Was it a _girl_? And most importantly, was the note real? 

No. This must be a joke. No way he would get a note on Valentine’s Day. And besides, even if it was real it would be from one of the girls. The only other gay guy Louis knew was Zayn, and he’d only come out to Niall 3 hours ago. Niall. Niall! Niall can help him decide whether the note was fake or not. He needs to find Niall. 

*

“I got a note,” Louis announces, walking up to Niall in the cafeteria and waving it over his head.

“Shit, what?” Niall drops his fork and comes over, peering over his shoulder to read. “Going to confess to you soon? Shit, we have to find out who wrote this!”

“I have no clue! What if I don’t find out before-”

“Niall?” A voice sounds from behind them, unsure and seeming shy on intruding. “Can we talk?”

It’s Zayn.

Louis notices the way he stands kind of bent with his fingers tangled in the bottom of his shirt. Niall stiffens for a microsecond beside him before relaxing and saying, “sure.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Louis says. He rests his hand on Niall's back and makes eye contact with Zayn for a moment before walking away.

He finds Harry in the hallway, trying hard to find space for a massive box of chocolates he'd presumably received from the student council thing. Any trace of the nervousness he radiated before seemed to be gone, replaced by frustration with the fact that the 20 inch wide box won't fit into his 15 inch wide locker. 

“Woah,” Louis exclaims, walking up behind him to laugh at the sight. “Someone really went all out for Valentine's day.”

“Fuck off,” Harry groans. “Zayn got it for me as a joke. It just won't. Fit. In my. Fucking. Locker.” He punctuates each pause with an attempt to shove the box in, but his locker stays resilient. “I give up.” He releases the box with a sigh and lets it slide to the floor. Upon hitting the ground it bursts open and about 15 different types of chocolate fall out and spread over the floor. Harry eyes them wearily.

Louis pats him on the arm, letting his hand rest on Harry's bicep for longer than is strictly necessary before saying, “it's okay, they can't hurt you anymore.”

Harry rolls his eyes before letting out a tiny chuckle. “I'm sorry, I'm just kind of annoyed.”

“What, why?”

“It’s stupid.”

“You can tell me,” Louis says softly. “I won't judge.” And there it is again, his hand resting on Harry's bicep for a lot longer than it should.

“I just-” Harry groans, running his hand through his hair and clenching his jaw. “I got so many notes today. But none of them were from my crush, the only person I wanted a note from.”

Oh right, Harry has a crush too. Louis forgets that sometimes. “I'm sure you did, how are you so sure you didn't?”

“I would have recognized the handwriting. They've got such nice handwriting.” Harry bites back a smile. “So neat and cute and just- oh, it fits them so well.”

Damn, Harry is far gone. “I'm sure it'll be okay,” Louis reassures him. “Not many people like to write these anyways.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.” Harry kicks at the ground, accidentally punting a piece of chocolate into the row of lockers opposite them, which let out a loud bang. Louis yelps.

“Aw, you got so scared,” Harry laughs, “you looked so cute when you jumped up like four feet high.”

“Shut up,” Louis blushes.

“Oh, speaking of, are we still on for a sleepover tomorrow? After the game?”

“Speak- Speaking of? How is that even remote- You know what, nevermind. Yeah, we're still on for tomorrow.”


	14. Final Lacrosse Game

_Who is the note from?_ Louis is pacing around his room, agitated, with the note clutched in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He has half a mind to call Eleanor, but she is probably asleep already. No need to bother her with his superficial Valentine’s note drama. With a sigh, he stops in the middle of the room and calls Niall. He picks up on the third ring. 

“Hey dude,” Niall says, staring into the camera with bleary eyes. “Why are you calling me at 1am?”

“Can’t sleep.” Louis starts pacing again. “Thinking about the note. Do you think it’s real?”

Niall groans, shifting on his bed and sitting up. “Honestly? I dunno. Lots of people like to send fake notes when schools do these kinds of things. Can you read the note again?”

“Why?”

“Just to check. I mean, didn’t the person leave a clue at the bottom?”

“Oh yeah.” Louis opens the note with his left hand and reads out the last sentence. “Ps, if you really want to know who I am, the initials might help you. Hm.”

“What are the initials?”

“L.S.”

“Huh.” Niall props a pillow up behind him on the headrest of his bed. “L.S. Hm. L.S.”

“You know what this reminds me of,” Louis realises suddenly, stopping his pacing and looking down at the last sentence again. “Harry’s H.T.”

“Oh, you’re right.”

Louis frowns. “Well, I made a connection. But I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I don’t think they’re connected. I mean, Harry didn’t exactly invent initials.”

“Didn’t he?”

“Wait actually.” Niall's head shoots up and his eyes narrow in thought. “L.S. does remind me of H.T…”

“Uhh, yeah?”

“I’ve solved it, I know who the note is from.”

“Well, who??”

Niall winks. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait, no, seriously, who?? Is it real?”

“Yes, it’s real. I’m not going to tell you who it is, you’ll find out tomorrow. All I’m gonna say is you’ll be very happy.”

“What? Niall, you know I’m only going to be happy if it’s Harry. And we both know it’s not.”

Niall just smiles, albeit wickedly. “Goodnight.”

“Wait, no!!”

Niall hangs up. 

“Ugh. Useless friend.” Louis throws his phone on his bed and slumps down in his desk chair.

*

Harry’s next soccer game is the day after. Louis packs his bag for the sleepover and leaves his house surprisingly early. He debates which sweater to bring with, seeing as winter isn’t quite over yet. In the end, after heavily considering wearing a faded black hoodie from a summer camp he went to with Eleanor as a kid, he digs a bit deeper into his closet and pulls out the maroon soccer sweater Harry had gotten him for his birthday with a white number 28 splashed across the back. You know what? Why not. Harry wouldn’t have gotten it for him if he wasn’t okay with his wearing it. Louis pulls on the sweater and leaves.

*

Niall is already waiting for Louis when he enters his first period class. “Well, any news on the note?”

“No.” Louis slumps down in his seat. “Honestly I haven’t thought about it since yesterday. Wanted to call Eleanor but she was asleep.” He groans and lets his head fall back. “Is this what being famous is like? Ugh, how does Harry do it.”

Niall grins. “Yeah that’s fame for you. You’re practically an A-list celebrity now.”

“Annoying.” Louis rolls his head back up to where his chin is touching his chest and lets out a puff of air. “Do you know when the person who gave me my note is going to talk to me?”

“No clue. Maybe ask Harry?”

“No way.” He shakes his head.

“What, haven’t you told him?” Niall asks.

“That I got a note? Nah, it’s embarrassing.” Louis shrugs and bites his lip. “I mean, he got like 6 notes yesterday. I don’t want to bring all of my one-note drama to him. It’s kind of sad.”

“If you say so.”

*

The stadium erupts with cheers as both soccer teams walk onto the field. They wave to the spectators, both sides jumps around nervously and psyching themselves up for the game ahead. Niall and Louis stand halfway up the bleachers, clutching to each other for warmth as Louis waves wildly at Harry.

The game kicks off at exactly half past seven. A tall buff guy, Avery according to Louis' memory, passes the ball to Harry from where he stands at the halfline. Harry catches it and immediately turns to run down the field. With the entire stadium cheering him on, Harry tears down the field, surpassing every defender in his way and… Passes the ball back to Avery, who had since relocated to standing midway in the opposing team’s territory.

Louis leans over to whisper in Niall's ear. “Damn, really thought Harry was gonna have an epic scoring moment just then.”

Niall glances at him and laughs. “You really have no idea how soccer works, do you?”

“Not the slightest.”

Avery receives the ball perfectly and takes a shot at the goal a few strides later. The defenders had all run over to block Harry, so Avery has a clear shot when he strikes. 

“Wait, speaking of, why aren’t you playing? I thought you were on the soccer team?”

“Eh,” Niall shrugs. “Couldn’t be assed.”

*

The game ends soon after: Harry's team wins. There are no last minute, deciding goals as Louis had expected there to be. Apparently the difference in goals scored meant the game from pretty much decided from the halftime. “It was highly unlikely the opposing team was going to catch up,” Niall explains.

So there was no dramatic end. Harry still played incredibly, though. In Louis' opinion. He shivers and hops from one foot to another, trying to keep warm as he watches Harry jog behind his teammates in a victory lap. His legs are red from the wind. “He looks so cold,” Louis moans. “I wanna go down there and give him my jacket.”

Niall looks over at him and laughs, loud and clear against the harsh winds of the night. “Mate, you're so far gone.”

A helpless smile flits across Louis' face. “Yeah.”

The team ends their victory lap in one final huddle before breaking apart, some players heading for the showers while others went to meet their girlfriends. 

Louis groans as he and Niall head to the field to meet Harry. “He's so attractive it's unfair. Like how can one person be so beautiful?? Man, if it wasn't practically minus 40° I might be hard as a rock right now.”

Niall chokes slightly. “I'm gonna go. Don't think I can look Harry in the face after that.”

He walks away.

Harry jogs over. His hair clings slightly to his forehead as he adjusts his jersey, pulling it away from his sticky chest. “Hey, how are you?”

“Good,” Louis smiles. Harry pulls him into a hug which he clumsily reciprocates with his hands in his pockets. “It’s really cold though.”

“Oh, do you wanna wear my jacket?” Harry pats his arms and looks around him. “I don’t have it with me actually, dunno why I offered it to you.”

“That's alright,” Louis shrugs. “Hey, good job during the game by the way. I heard some of the cheerleaders on the way here talking about how hot you looked scoring those goals.”

“Oh um, right.” Harry bites his lip, “about that, I was actually hoping we could talk in private? Can we walk to one of the goals or something, away from the crowds?”

“Of course.”

Harry leads him away from the rest of the soccer players and towards the end of the field.

*

“So…” Harry trails, suddenly becoming uncharacteristically nervous. “Thanks for coming to the game.”

“Of course!” From far off, Louis could see Niall chatting with a group of team members. He smiles, happy to see him getting along so easily with their classmates.

Harry turns his head and follows his line of vision. His smile falters.

“Why the long face?” Louis jokes. He didn't expect an answer. 

Harry bites his lip and ducks his head as he turns back around. To Louis' surprise he whispers, “I'm really nervous.”

“What, why?” Louis moves to place a hand on Harry's shoulder but decides against it at the last second, resulting in a weird arm spasm.

Harry glances at him before facing the field again. “I decided to confess to my crush today. I'm just nervous to tell- to tell him.”

“Him?” Louis questions. “Don't you mean her?”

Harry licks his lips nervously. He looks at Louis for a fraction of a second before looking out towards the field again with such intensity it's as if he were trying to burn a hole in the horizon. “No.” His voice shakes slightly. “I mean him. I- I have a crush on a. On a guy.” He turns back around, ever so slowly, and faces Louis again. Uncertainty blooms in his eyes as he asks, “are you okay with that?”

Louis gapes at him. “Wha, I mean- yeah of course I'm-” he gestures to himself- “of course I'm okay with that I'm just. Surprised?”

Harry laughs nervously. He tucks an errant curl behind his ear and scuffs his shoes on the dirt. “Yeah I'm not… very open about it. But I've known since the third grade so-”

“I get it.” Louis finally allows himself to lay a hand on Harry's shoulder. “I went through the same thing, remember?”

On the outside, Louis acts perfectly calm. But inside, along with dozens of thoughts he'd normally be thinking about Harry, his brain was a chorus of _he's gay he's gay he's gay he's gay._ One part of him hopes that he might now finally have a chance with him, but the more logical part reasons that Harry’s crush would probably end up being one of his teammates on the soccer team. They’d only been friends for the past two months, after all.

“Yeah, well. He’s only the second guy I’ve had a proper crush on. I don’t usually have crushes for more than a month at a time.”

“Who was the first guy?” 

Harry groans, covering his face with his hands. “I don’t want to say, it’s embarrassing.”

“Come on, I’ll tell you who I used to have a crush on.”

“Fine.” Harry drops his voice to a low whisper, as if scared someone would hear him from across the entire soccer field. “When I first met Zayn in sixth grade, I had a crush on him for like 8 months. It only went away after he left for summer break and we didn’t see each other for 7 weeks. Now we’re best friends and I can’t remotely imagine being into him. Gross.”

“So you’re not into Zayn now?”

“God no.”

“Huh.” Louis pulls his jacket tighter around himself. “Zayn would have been my first guess.”

“Really?” Harry scoffs. “Why?”

“Well I mean, you’re best friends with him. And besides, he’s really good at soccer and from what I know is pretty nice. And it goes without saying that he’s really hot.”

“Damn, Louis. If you wanted to date him you should have just said so.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Shut up, I barely even know him.”

“Fair, fair. So who did you used to have a crush on then?” Harry asks, playfully nudging his shoulder. “If it isn’t me I’m going to be very disappointed.”

“No, sorry.” Louis fakes a pout. “Do you know Jason Atwin? In twelfth grade?”

Harry bites his lip, thinking for a moment. “Oh, you mean eleventh grade Hailey’s brother?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s kind of gross.” Harry grins wickedly at him. “Is that who you were into?”

Louis groans. “Yeah. For like four months back in 4th grade.”

Harry lets out a bark of laughter. “Seriously though, Jason? He was on the soccer team last year. Got kicked off for watching porn in the locker rooms.”

“He what?” Louis' eyes widened. “To be fair, I liked him when he was, like, 12, so-“

“I still can’t believe it though! Is that your type?”

“Ehh, I’m not a porn in the locker rooms kinda guy but-“ Louis, for once doing the intelligent thing, decides to stop talking before he gives too much away. He quickly covers up with, “so, you’re into a guy, huh.”

“Yup.”

“That would explain why I couldn’t find a single girl with the initials H.T from your note,” Louis laughs. But then, another thought dawns on him. “Hang on, there’s no guys with the initial H.T either. Eleanor checked to see when we were going through possible crushes.”

“Eleanor… knew?” Harry laughed. “Of course she did, didn’t it only take her like 3 seconds to figure out who I’m into?”

“Yeah. She’s always suspected you were gay though, that probably helped.”

“Wait really? I thought I was good at hiding it.”

“Well I didn’t notice anything, but she’s usually pretty good with romance related things so it’s really no wonder she was right after all.”

“Huh.” Harry looks over to the field for a moment, pensive. Then he snaps back and looks directly at Louis. “Stop distracting me, I’m meant to have confessed already.”

Louis throws his hands up. “You’re the one who dragged me out here!”

“Yeah, I know.” Harry begins shifting from side to side and subconsciously wringing his hands together. “So, basically, um-”

“What are you doing?” Louis interrupts. “Oh god, don't tell me you want me to help you ask your crush out. That's weird.”

“No, I'm. Well I'm-” Harry frowns. “Have you ever fallen for someone you know you shouldn't have? Someone who's so out of your league, it's just sad really.”

Louis chuckles awkwardly. “Yeah, I have. It's a horrible way to live.”

“But at the same time, I want it so bad - I want _him_ so bad - that I just can't imagine never confessing.”

“Well that's… Not ideal,” he offers intelligently. 

Harry forces a weak laugh. “No. It's not.” He looks up at Louis. “What do you think I should do? Confess? Keep it a secret?”

“Well…” Louis scoffs his shoes on the grass, thinking. What would he do? He’s in the same exact situation, but something tells him Harry would appreciate advice telling him to just wait it out until he’s over whoever he’s into. He chooses his words carefully. “You came out here bent on confessing, I think you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. And if he rejects you, I'm right here to help.”

“Yeah, you're right.” Harry straightens up. “Gotta man up.”

“Not really the message I was going for but-”

“Louis I like you.”

A beat of silence.

“What?” Louis' head snaps up to look at him. “You're joking, right?”

Harry shakes his head. “I've liked you since before we even started talking, before all the mind reading drama. I've liked you since the beginning of the school year.”

Louis shakes his head, slowly backing away. “You're not- That's not. You can't- Me?” His face falls. “You're joking.”

“I'm not, Louis. Didn't you get my note?”

“Your- your what?”

“My Valentine's day note. I wrote one for you that the student council delivered. I left some pretty obvious clues in there, didn't you know it was from me?”

“No I- I thought it was a joke I. I didn't think someone actually-”

Harry steps towards him. “Well I did, actually. Talked all about how I felt we had this deep connection, didn't you understand what I meant? Our mind reading connection?”

Louis shakes his head. “No, I didn't- I wasn't- are you serious?”

Harry nods. “Don't think I'd ever joke about this. I like you Louis. Like, really like you. And I hope this doesn't make you too uncomfortable, that we can still be friends-”

“You're really serious? You like me?”

“Yea-”

“I like you.”

Harry inhales sharply. “You do?”

“I've liked you for years. You're the guy in math class causing the buzzing you kept complaining about. You're the person I was talking about that very first time I came to your place and we talked about our crushes. I've liked you for so long, Harry. So long.”

Harry steps closer to him. “I, this. I can't-”

Louis licks his lips nervously. Harry's eyes fall to his mouth as Louis asks, “you're really serious?”

“Yeah,” Harry whispers. Bright red dusts his cheeks as he gently places a shaking hand on his shoulder, lightly tracing his thumb along the back of Louis' neck. 

“What is even happening right now,” he asks breathlessly. 

Harry swallows and brings his other hand up to thread his fingers in Louis' hair. “Louis, Li, can I- I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long, can I? Can I kiss you, please?”

“God, yes.”

And then, with the same uncertainty as earlier clouding his eyes, Harry brings his other hand up from Louis' shoulder and buries it in his hair, pulling him in closer and closer until-

They're kissing.

They're kissing and it's so sweet, so gentle that Louis has to press himself up against Harry to make sure he's really there. He trails his hand along Harry's arm before leaving it on his bicep, anchoring him as Harry drops one of his hands to grip his waist and pull them closer together.

Their feet touch when Louis steps forward to try and raise himself to Harry’s height. His knees knock rather abruptly against Harry’s legs, throwing him off balance and breaking the kiss. Louis grimaces and drops his hand from his bicep, but Harry just grins at him and leans in again. 

“Hey, Harry!” Avery waves at them from across the field and shouts; “we’re doing team pictures, come on!”

Louis jumps back and stares at Avery like he’s never seen him before. A shiver of annoyance passes through Harry before he regains his composure and effortlessly nods back in acknowledgment. “I’ll just be a second.” He turns away from Louis and runs down the field.

Louis stares after him. He lifts a hand up to his face and drags his finger over his bottom lip. Did Harry really just kiss him? As he looks down to where the rest of the school is standing he can still feel the tingle on his lips and the burning feeling where Harry had so gently held him by the cheek. Harry really just kissed him. Louis blinks twice before his brain starts again and he realises what he should be doing; running after him. Or away from him? 

No. Niall. He should be running to Niall. Niall can help him. He squints and looks past the huddle of soccer players and sees him standing away from them, talking to some cheerleader. He starts running towards him. 

“Niall!” He calls out when he’s close enough to be heard. “Hey, Niall!” Harry is still standing with the rest of the team getting his picture taken, so Louis doesn’t feel bad for running right past him. 

“Dude, what?” Niall is evidently peeved that he’s being teared away from his conversation with the cheerleader, who Louis now sees is none other than Allison Atkins. Oh. Maybe now is a bad time.

Actually no. This is more important. He slows to a walk and grabs Niall by the arm to lead him away. “I have to talk to you.”

Niall glares at him and very pointedly nudges his head toward Allison. “Are you sure right now is the best time?”

“Yes, come on.” He still doesn’t move. “It’s about the note.”

Niall's eyebrows shoot up and his mouth falls open slightly. “Oh, did-”

“Yeah. He just did.” Assuming Niall's guess was right, he should already know Louis was talking about Harry.

Niall turns to Allison. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Talk later?”

“Yeah, sure.” Allison smiles brightly at him and bounces off to the other cheerleaders.

“Harry confessed?”

So Niall was right after all. “Yeah. He, uh, well- he kissed me.”  


“Shit, that’s great! Why isn’t he with you though?” Niall glares at him. “Did you do something stupid.”

“What? No! He’s just off taking pictures with the team! You have no faith in me.”

“Ahh, what can I say.” Niall grins smugly. “So, he a good kisser?”

“I dunno. Not like I have any past experiences to base it on.”

“I can kiss you, to show you.”

“Eugh, please don’t” Louis pulls a face. 

“Don’t what?” Harry joins them suddenly. The team seems to be done taking pictures, if anything is to be said by the troupe of sweaty athletes heading to the locker rooms. 

“Don’t kiss me, I said.”

Harry laughs. “Damn, I leave for two seconds and someone’s already trying to steal my man!” He throws his arm over Louis' shoulders and says, only to him, “ready to go?”

Louis smiles up at him. “Yeah.”

Niall gags audibly. “If you two could stop eye-fucking in front of me-”

Harry clicks his tongue. “You know you love it.”

“Gross. I’m leaving.” Niall zips his jacket up and turns away, waving.

“Bye!” Louis calls out. Then, to Harry, “are you going to shower?”

“Yeah, I’ll just be two seconds.”

*

They go home the same way they had the first time around, Louis perched precariously on the metal back of Harry’s bike. This time around, instead of holding on to Harry’s waist, he hesitantly wraps his arms around his middle. This is… Different. The ride only lasts 10 minutes but it feels like much longer; probably because of the stabbing pains in his left buttocks, possibly caused by sitting on cold metal bars for too long. Who’s to say.

When they reach Harry’s house Louis hops off the back of the bike with elegance he did not know he possessed and grabs Harry’s soccer bag for him as he goes to open the front door. The foyer looks the exact same as it had the first time around, save the absence of the framed picture of young Harry that he had given Louis for Christmas. 

They trudge up to Harry’s room. There is no extra bed set up.

“Oh, no extra bed?” Louis remarks cheekily. “That’s bold.”

“Yeah, well.” Harry bites his lip. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming home with me after what I was planning to say.”

“Of course I would.” Louis shakes his head. “I still can’t believe you didn’t know I like you. I thought I was being obvious.”

“Well, same here!”

Louis scoffs and turns his attention to Harry’s desk, where he had seen the H.T. notes so long ago. He’s about to ask what the initials stand for when he looks up to the cork-board and the question dies in his throat. There, stuck to it with a red pin, is the half-a-heart friendship necklace Louis had given him for Christmas so many weeks ago. He’d honestly forgot it existed. His half was buried somewhere in his bedside drawer.

“You kept the necklace?” Louis asks, surprised.

“What?” Harry’s head snaps up and as he realises that Louis' looking at the necklace he has pinned to the wall behind him he ducks his head quickly and looks away. “Oh, yeah. Is- is that okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I gave it to you so.” Louis drums his fingers on the desk and avoids looking at Harry.

“I never told you I kept it cause, well. I figured that would have been a surefire sign that I like you. But now that I know you like me...” Harry frowns. “You do like me, right?”

Louis actually laughs. “I do. So much.”

“Well, thank god.” Harry clears his throat. “Do you just wanna go to bed? I mean, I did just play an entire soccer game. We can talk things through tomorrow.”

Louis nods. “Let me get changed first.” He pulls his pyjamas out of his bag and disappears to the bathroom. When he returns Harry is sitting on his bed, tapping his thumbs together and waiting on him. He’s wearing a pyjama shirt, something Louis remembers very explicitly he didn’t wear last time. Oh god, is everything awkward now? Well, the fact that they had crushes on each other put everything in a whole new context: Maybe it was smart that Harry kept his shirt on this time.

“Where am I going to sleep?” Louis asks. _Please say in the bed with you,_ he thinks.

Harry stands up when he speaks. “Well, I can set up a bed for you.”

“Okay.”

“Well, or. I was actually thinking we could… Share the bed? Only if you want, of course.”

_Boom, score_. Louis tries (and desperately fails) to look nonchalant as he says, “okay, sure.”

Harry barely tries to conceal his grin as he sits back on his bed and throws his blanket over himself.

Louis crawls in after him not a minute later. _This is awkward,_ Louis thinks. He casually looks over at Harry, who’s lying stock-still on his back with his hands on his sides. They’re a foot apart and both of them refuse to move. _Oh, fuck everything_. Louis rolls over suddenly and throws his arm over Harry, resting his head on his chest and pressing himself close to him in every way he can. Harry stiffens for a second and Louis almost worries he’s done something wrong before he relaxes and curls his arm over Louis' back.

It’s almost comical how fast Harry’s heart is beating below Louis' ears, but it feels strangely comforting to him. Harry’s just as nervous as he is. They lie like this for another couple minutes before Harry shifts minutely, moving further down on the mattress. Louis adjusts himself too. His head is now resting near the crook of Harry’s shoulders. He can hear Harry’s slow breathing and senses he’s about to fall asleep. He should sleep too. They both need rest. Lots to talk about tomorrow.

“‘Night Li.” Harry drops his cheek to the top of Louis' head.

They’re full on cuddling now.

Alright. 

“‘Night,” Louis whispers back. And if his heart is beating out of his chest, well, nobody needs to know.


	15. the final (incomplete, oops) chapter

Saturday the 16th of February 2019. The day after valentine’s day. The day after Harry had come out to Louis. The day after they kissed for the first time.

When Louis wakes up, his first thought is _woah, sweaty_. Spending the night cuddled up into Harry’s side, although something he’d (maybe) been dreaming about for the past year, was a much sweatier ordeal than he’d imagined.

He rolls out of Harry’s grasp and picks his phone up off the night stand, checking the time. 8:47am. Okay. If the last sleepover was anything to go by, he still has a bit of time before Harry will wake up. He opens his instagram to see two notifications from Niall.

how did the sleepover go? did u suck Hazzas dick

also my date thing with Zayn is today so we’ll see how that goes

Oh shit, the Zayn and Niall date. He completely forgot about that. (There were, ahem, other things on his mind). He furrows his brows and types out a reply.

Have fun with your mans ;)

And no I didn’t suck his dick shut up

He returns his phone to the bedside table and climbs out of bed. As much as he would love to stay where he was, waiting for Harry to wake up so he could super romantically watch him sleep or something, he needs to pee. Yeah, his bladder is a buzzkill. Sue him.

By the time he returns Harry has woken up and is looking through his phone. “Hey,” he says, looking up to see Louis standing in the doorway.

“Hey yourself.”

“Ready to talk?”

What is there to talk about? They kissed. There’s not that many ways that can be interpreted. “About the mind reading thing or what happened yesterday?”

“Both?” Harry throws his phone on the mattress and shifts upright. “We can start with mind reading.” He looks down at himself. “After I change.”

*

“So what was with the mind reading?” Louis asks. “We never even tried to figure that out.”

Harry shrugs. “No idea. Do you think we should see a doctor?”

He shakes his head. “Definitely not. They’ll think we’re on something. And it’s not like we could prove anything now anyways, not like we did with Eleanor. With our connection faded, a doctor would just think we’re making it up.”

“True, true. So we don’t tell anybody?”

“Well, I think we should. Just maybe someone who will actually believe us. Like a fortune-teller or a ghost hunter.”

Harry coughs and shrugs in consideration. “I mean, if you know any ghost hunters we could call up…”

“Okay, maybe not then.”

“I say we leave it. It happened, it was cool, but nobody’s gonna believe us when we tell them, so I think we should keep it secret. So that people don’t think we’re crazy.”

“Smart.”

Well it’s good that they have the mind-reading thing sorted. But, fuck, that means-

“So where do we go from here?”

“What do you mean?” Louis asks. He knows exactly what Harry means. He’s knows he’s talking about the kiss: he’s just stalling so he can have time to figure out his answer. Where _do_ they go from here? It’s not like they can un-kiss. And they both like each other. But at the same time, they’re in completely different friend groups at school. Not to mention that in the school’s eyes, they’re both _straight_.

“Like, are we dating? Do you want to date me?” Harry continues.

He coughs. “I mean… Yeah?” Good, now- “do you want to date me?”

“I literally kissed you yesterday obviously I want to date you.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know how you didn’t realise I liked you. I complimented you endlessly and I always wanted to hang out with you. And besides, every time we talked about your crush I forgot how to act like a normal human being.”

“Okay, yeah. I did notice that,” Louis admits. “I just didn’t think anything of it. I mean, what was I going to do? Assume the most popular guy in the grade, who I thought was straight by the way, was into me?”

“I mean, I _literally_ kissed you a couple weeks ago.” Harry gives him an I-got-you-there look.

“Okay first of all, your sister came in before we kissed so nothing actually happened. And second of all I just assumed it was a spur of the moment thing.”

“What kind of a straight guy nearly kisses his friend as a _spur of the moment_ thing??”

Admittedly, yeah. How did Louis brush that off so easily? “But whenever we hang out you’re always so chill! Like everything’s whatever to you.”

“Definitely not first couple times we hung out. I always wanted to hug you so bad before you left but I was nervous you’d like, feel my heart or something.”

“You thought I’d do _what_?”

“You know, if you hug someone when their heart is beating really fast you can feel it, can’t you?”

Louis shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t hug many people with high blood pressure.”

“Fair.” Harry sits up and grins. “So we’re dating now? That’s cool.”

“Cool? I’d hope you’ll be more excited than _that_ in the future.”

“Oh, uhh, we’re dating, FUCK YEAH!!”

“Jesus christ not that excited.”

Harry jumps out of bed and tackles him, hugging him tightly. “But I _am_ that excited.”

Thank god Harry’s head is buried in his chest; he can’t see how Louis is smiling like a maniac. “Yeah, okay,” he says, patting Harry’s head, “so am I.”

*

“So, I have a question,” Louis says promptly. He’s lying on the floor, head towards the bed where Harry is sitting with his feet planted on either side of him. It’s only been ten minutes since the first talk, but during that time they’ve already gotten changed for the day and Louis has texted Niall, recounting the events of the night to him. He still hasn’t told Eleanor about anything that happened yesterday; he’s saving that for when he’s home.

“Yeah, sure, ask me anything.”

“What does H.T. mean?”

Harry groans and blushes, hiding his face in his hands. “It’s stupid.”

“I won’t judge.”

“You’re going to think I’m weird.”

“I already think you’re weird.”

“That’s less reassuring than you think it is.”

Louis smiles softly. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I was just curious.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just-” Harry sighs. “It really is stupid.”

“I won’t judge,” he repeats.

“Right, yeah, okay. Well, basically. H.T. stands for Harry Tomlinson.”

“What?”

“God, don’t make me repeat it.” Harry whimpers. “I feel dumb enough as it is.”

“No, dude, I’m not making fun of you. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Louis takes Harry’s hand, lightly tracing his thumb over the back of it. “Does it really stand for that?”

“Yeah. I wanted to see what my initials would look like if, you know.”

“We got married?”

“Yeah.”

Fuck. If that isn’t the cutest thing he’s ever heard. It’s nice to know Harry is just as into him, just as nervous about this whole situation, as he is.

*

“Louis, Louis,” Niall calls out, rushing towards him. “We have to talk.” He grabs Louis' arm and pulls him roughly towards the front door. It’s Monday morning, and he’s barely made it four feet into the building before he’s being dragged out again.

“Ow!” Louis protests, pulling his arm back and rubbing it. “What’s your deal?”

“Just, ugh, follow me.”

“Niall, are we… Skipping class?”

“Yes, shut up.” He pushes Louis through the front door and down the steps. “This is more important.”

They walk to the parking lot, where they crouch uncomfortably behind a black SUV. Louis squints. This better be important.

“So,” Niall starts, easing himself into a squatting position. “Zayn kissed me.”

“What? When?” Louis does a double take.

“Just now. We went to the library to talk about the date-”

“Oh, the library. Real sexy place to get it on.”

“Fuck off, this is serious.”

“Okay, okay. Continue.”

“So there we were,”

“-Barbecue sauce on our tiddies-”

“Louis!”

“Sorry, sorry.” It’s hard to take Niall seriously when they’re crouching behind a massive car in a parking lot. “Continue.”

“So, _as I was saying_ , we were talking about the date for a little bit, and Zayn just started, like, leaning in? And I didn’t really know what was going on, I thought he was going to whisper something in my ear—cause, you know, we were in a library—so I leaned in too. But then instead, he kissed me?”

“Shit. So what did you say?”

“Well, uh, I didn’t really say much. I was being kissed,” Niall says, as if it was obvious.

“Wait, you didn’t pull away?”

“Well… no? And I just, I dunno, I think I-” He pauses. “I think I liked it? Him, I mean. Kissing him. I liked that.” He nods resolutely. “Yeah, I liked it.”

Well that’s new. Louis takes a second just to look at Niall— _really_ look at him—and he can tell from his facial expression that he isn’t joking. Call it gay intuition. “So what do you mean?” He asks slowly, careful not to overstep. “Do you like him?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Are you… Going to tell him?”

“I think?” Niall sighs weakly, falling out of his squatting position and leaning against the side of the car instead. “I’m just so confused, Louis. I’ve never felt anything for guys before. And while I obviously don’t have anything against being gay I just-” He sighs.

“You never imagined you would be?”

“Exactly.”

Louis smiles. He sits next to Niall and leans against him slightly. “I get how you feel.”

“My problem isn’t even the fact that I like Zayn,” Niall continues, as if he’s completely unaware Louis was next to him. “I can deal with that. It’s just- what does that make me? Am I bi? Or maybe I’ve been gay all along and I never realised it? Or is Zayn just an exception and I’m still straight? I’m so _confused_.”

“Well you like Zayn, he obviously likes you, why not just ask him out? You can worry about labels later.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” He throws an arm over Louis' shoulder and laughs. “God, this is _not_ where I saw my date with Zayn going.”

*

Niall runs off soon after to talk to Zayn (go him!), leaving Louis to head to class alone, now ten minutes late. What even is his first period? It’s Monday morning so… Math. Oh joy. On the bright side, he sits next to Harry in math so it’s not like he’s suffering.

And, oh. A memory comes to mind suddenly, a revelation if you will, and Louis almost has to stop halfway up the staircase to cope with the realisation he’s just been hit with. He thought it was crazy the first time around. That one math class before the holidays, he’d entertained the idea of holding hands with Harry during the lesson. Back then he thought he was being crazy. But now, well now it’s a completely rational thought. Because Harry is his _boyfriend_.

And of course this isn’t the first time Louis has thought of this, he’s even done his fair share of freaking out over the phone with Eleanor, but this is the first time it’s really, _really_ hitting him. He’s dating Harry. Harry Styles is his boyfriend.

What, pray tell, the _fuck_.

Miracles really do happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey lads thanks for reading this edited version of mindreader. sorry that the last seven chapter were literally word for word the exact same thing. oops. at least now i can officially say bye bye to this story. damn. it's been like two years since i started. insane. well, i'm working on another (non romance, fantasy) story now so i've got that going for me. anyways yes thank you to anyone who read and enjoyed :)  
> i'm off to go write on my new story and try to forget this chapter of my life ever happened.


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